


Hunting Ground

by theunknownfate



Category: Alien vs Predator (2004), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Aliens, Carnage - Freeform, Kink Meme, M/M, Prompt Fill, Xenomorph - Freeform, Yautja, desperation sex, facehuggers, predator - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:16:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 24,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1194783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunknownfate/pseuds/theunknownfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kinkmeme prompt requesting Aliens vs Predator vs Watchmen, with bonus points for desperation 'we're going to die' sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The goons had been skinned and hung from the beams. They were all well-known in the underworld. Lowlifes and leg-breakers, mostly. The big fish, their boss still had his skin, but was missing his head. Rorschach stood in the dark warehouse and watched the bodies sway gently, casting dim shadows like groping hands over the headless body. He processed the scene with only a distant, numb horror. 

The killer had entered through the skylight, taken out the guards at the top of the stairs and then killed the other four with some sort of projectile weapon judging by the blood spray. Then, he (Rorschach was sure it was a man. He had never even heard of a woman with feet as big as the tracks through the blood at the base of the stairs.) had taken on Jimmy Splatter and removed his head. 

This was not the work of a garden-variety cutthroat. That much was certain. Even that fake voodoo gang he and Nite Owl had broken up years ago hadn’t had horrors like this in its basement. The average psychopath wouldn’t be this efficient. The word he kept rolling over in his head was ‘professional’. But what hitman would take the time to make such a mess unless it was to make an example? A rival organization? Some government secret police? It made him think of the Comedian.

“Hunh,“ he said. Maybe he could track down the Comedian and get his take on it. The Comedian could’ve done this, he mused, remembering the stories of soldier who fell to mutilating their fallen foes. He would definitely find something funny about it. 

Rorschach didn’t feel like laughing. He wished he had a partner to help him with this one. He didn’t know if he could stomach wishy-washiness either, but he hunched his shoulders against the light rain and started off towards 79th.

His shape flared orange and red against the indigo spectrum of the cold street and a faint, wet chitter was lost in the sound of the drizzle. As Rorschach’s warm silhouette disappeared around a corner, the echo of the sound he had made was replayed from the broken skylight. 

“Hunh.”


	2. Chapter 2

The lights at 400 79th* were all on and Rorschach hesitated, considering going to the old subway entrance instead. After so long, he wasn’t comfortable just walking to the front door and was already going through a list of reasons not to. _Couldn’t be seen with Daniel. Neighbors might suspect. Shouldn’t-_

Something shattered, whipping him around to stare at the windows again. One of the lamps was gone from behind the living room curtain and flailing shadows played across it for a moment. Then there was a thump, like a coffee table being knocked over, and Rorschach was already running for the door. 

He kicked it open and burst inside. Daniel was thrashing in the floor. His eyes were wild and his face was red and he was clawing at something around his neck. Rorschach ran to help him but before he got there, saw a thing attached to the back of his former partner’s head. It looked like a spider or a crab and was clawing its way to Daniel’s face. Rorschach tried to grab it and tear it away, but it hung on and he ended up lifting Daniel’s whole body with it. It had a tail around his neck, Rorschach realized. _What was it??_

It was strong. He couldn’t get his fingers under the tail to ease the pressure. Daniel choked. His red face was turning blue and when he gasped, the thing inched toward his mouth. Daniel clamped his mouth shut and tried to jerk his face to the side, but it didn’t help. Rorschach felt the thing tense under his hands and saw the tail tighten, forcing another gasp out of Daniel. Rorschach caught a glimpse of the thing’s underside and something was coming out - and it looked like- and it was reaching for Daniel’s open mouth - and it wanted-

“No!“ Rorschach screamed without realizing the sound came from him. It could’ve been Daniel screaming if he had been able. Rorschach clamped one of his hands over Daniel’s mouth, trying to block the disgusting thing from entering any part of his friend. The proboscis bumped insistently at the back of his hand while Daniel’s mouth worked desperately for air under it. He forced his other arm between the thing’s belly and Daniel’s head, trying to lever it back. 

The spider-like claws left bloody furrows in Dan’s skin as Rorschach crammed his heel into the gap his arm had made. He had to roll Daniel to pin the monster to the floor with his foot. Maybe it wouldn’t let go until it had strangled Daniel completely, but it wouldn’t be allowed to defile him. 

The thing let go so suddenly that Rorschach staggered. It released Daniel and sprang at him. His hands were already raised, and that was the only thing that kept it from having full contact against his face. He felt the proboscis stab hard at his mouth through the mask and his stomach turned. He felt the tail lash around him, but his arm was in the way, so it couldn’t put as much pressure on his throat as it had Daniel’s. The mask was keeping it off of him, out of him, for the moment, but he had to get it off. 

The crab legs were no thicker than fingers, no reason they couldn’t be broken. He struggled for a grip on the thing, felt some of the segments shift, and the leak of fluid. If the thing could bleed, he could kill it. He twisted harder, heard a crunch, felt a new gush, and then felt the burn as his gloves were eaten through. Acid! Acid?!? It would dissolve his gloves and his skin and his mask, and the thought of that had him wrenching away from it with a furious scream. 

The claws tore through the mask and his head, leaving long scrapes in both, but whatever it was seemed to have had enough because it sprang away again, this time, zipping out the door that still hung open. 

 

Getting the gloves off was first priority. The leather was still sizzling. Drops started to fall on them as he wrestled them off. It wasn’t tears, it was black and white fluid starting to leak as the mask dissolved. He tore that off too, much as it also tore at his heart to see it sizzle into a puddle with his gloves. Could be replaced easier than the layer underneath. 

He had broken the lock, so there was no way to bar the door in case the thing came back. He braced the nearest end table against it to keep it closed and went to check on Daniel. He was still on the floor, still clutching his throat and thrashing. Rorschach hurried to his side and grabbed his shoulders to roll him over. Dan was too disoriented to realize he was facing a friend and tried to thrash away from him. 

“No!” Rorschach remembered that Daniel had never seen him like this. It was a stranger pawing at him, if he was even aware that Rorschach was there at all. “It’s me! Daniel! It’s me!” He tried to pull Dan’s head down to force him to look and let some recognition in, but at the first touch to his face, Dan keened and jerked away. Still anxious to calm him down, get some sort of explanation, he moved his grip to the heaving shoulders. “Daniel! Stop! You’re safe. I have you.”

Dan gasped, a deep, strangled sound. His neck was bruised and raw from the thing’s tail. How long had it had him? His glassy, terrified eyes squeezed shut and his head lolled back. His hands grabbed fistfuls of Rorschach’s coat and as his weight collapsed backwards, dragged Rorschach up over his torso. His whole body was lurching with the effort of pulling in enough air. Rorschach straddled him, trying to pull him up to a sitting position. 

Dan arched under him, lifting his knees clear of the floor, and pulling his chest against his own by the lapels. Rorschach gasped too. Under him, Dan was painfully hard. He could feel the throb through both of their clothes, completely out of sync with his sputtering heartbeat and sucking breaths. Shock sent a hot tingle through Rorschach’s body. He had heard of erotic asphyxiation, knew about the disseminated muscle relaxation in hanging victims, but it didn’t stop the first irrational rush of horror. What had that thing done to him??

Dan heaved under him again and the horror melted into another tingling wave of warmth. It combusted into shame a heartbeat later as Dan gasped the first syllable of his name and choked on the second. He hid his face against Rorschach’s shoulder, forcing the gasps into sobs. He was still erect, but the friction wasn’t insistent now that he was getting air. Rorschach carefully shifted away from it. Dan hadn’t let go of him, but his eyes opened again at the sound of his name. 

They panted together a little while. Dan stared at the new face in front of him. Rorschach saw his confusion and hesitation and kept speaking to him, letting the familiar voice fill in the gaps. As Dan’s body recovered, his expression settled too, accepting what was in front of him.

“What was that?” Rorschach asked when he thought Dan could stand to talk about it. “Where did it come from?”

“Hollis,” Dan whispered. “Called me. Watch news at his place.” He swallowed hard and winced. “Aircraft spotted. Thought I built it. To come out of retirement. Wish I had. Footage was bad, but awesome. Archie could never move like that.” His grip finally relaxed in Rorschach’s coat. His arms fell down to his sides. “Heard it following me home. From Hollis’ junkyard. Thought it was a rat. Too fast to see. Don’t know how it got in.”

“Think there could be more?” Rorschach asked. Dan shuddered, almost convulsed. 

“God, I hope not.” But then he realized what Rorschach might mean. “Oh Jesus, Hollis!” Rorschach was already up and going for the phone. When there was no answer, Dan struggled to his feet. “Better go check on him.”

“In no shape to walk.”

“So call us a cab.”

The cab ride was hard for Dan too. He was still dazed and shaken and Rorschach thought he passed out for a few minutes on the trip. It seemed doubtful that he would doze off after such trauma, but his head slid to rest on Rorschach‘s shoulder. When Rorschach tried to elbow him awake, Dan clung to his arm. Rorschach grumbled, but allowed it, chalking it up to trauma again. Rorschach kept a close eye on him anyway, for any change in color or trouble breathing, or inappropriate physical response.

They got to Mason’s and he wasn’t home. The door wasn’t locked and the lights were on, which was odd enough to worry them both. They looked at each other and a scuttling sound in the junkyard made Dan flinch. They went inside. 

“Left in a hurry,” Rorschach said at once, looking at some things on the floor that looked like they had been knocked off the table. “Chair still warm. We just missed him.”

“So he’s ok,” Dan was relieved. “What made him take off so suddenly though?” Rorschach made the vocal equivalent of a shrug and cast around the chair for anything that would’ve triggered a hasty exit. He was halfway looking for claw marks on the floor or upholstery, but the opened mail caught his eyes too. Bad news, maybe?

Dan was about to protest Rorschach’s snooping when a faint whine made him stop and notice Phantom under a corner table. The old dog looked pitifully at him and he knelt to stroke the drooping ears. 

“You look about like I feel,” he said. “Where’s the boss?” Phantom’s sad eyes looked around the room without his head. He heaved a heavy sigh and swallowed hard. Dan gave him a pat on the shoulder that made him yelp, startling both Rorschach and Dan. 

“Dog injured?” Rorschach asked. 

“I.. don’t see any mark on him,” Dan said. “But he sure doesn’t want me touching him. What’s the matter, boy?” 

Phantom didn’t answer and Rorschach looked warily at the dog before casting around again. This time he focused on the police radio. It would be just like him to sit around listening to old police transmissions, mulling over memories of masks and badges. It was easy to imagine Dan ending up like that and Rorschach punched a button before that thought could change his expression. 

The radio screeched to life, making them both jump again. It was pandemonium over the police channels, officers screaming at each other, either demanding explanations or wailing about officers down. Something had happened at the police station and officers were dead. The word ‘butchered’ got Rorschach’s attention. His head tilted, remembering the mob hideout, and the bodies hanging from rafters. 

“Went to help maybe?” he asked. “Any friends of his still on the force?”

“M-maybe,” Dan said, his horrified look coming back. “What are you thinking?”

“Could be nothing.” Rorschach started for the door. “Don’t look so worried.”

“You first,” Dan grumbled and Rorschach remembered again that he was unmasked. If Dan had been belligerent at all, they might’ve argued, but Dan just ran a hand over his bruised throat and hurried after. 

 

*Got Dan's address from his driver's license in the source book.


	3. Chapter 3

The lights at 400 79th* were all on and Rorschach hesitated, considering going to the old subway entrance instead. After so long, he wasn’t comfortable just walking to the front door and was already going through a list of reasons not to. _Couldn’t be seen with Daniel. Neighbors might suspect. Shouldn’t-_

Something shattered, whipping him around to stare at the windows again. One of the lamps was gone from behind the living room curtain and flailing shadows played across it for a moment. Then there was a thump, like a coffee table being knocked over, and Rorschach was already running for the door. 

He kicked it open and burst inside. Daniel was thrashing in the floor. His eyes were wild and his face was red and he was clawing at something around his neck. Rorschach ran to help him but before he got there, saw the thing attached to the back of Dan's head. It looked like a spider or a crab and was clawing its way to Daniel’s face. Rorschach tried to grab it and tear it away, but it hung on and he ended up lifting Daniel’s whole body with it. It had a tail around his neck, Rorschach realized. _What was it??_

It was strong. He couldn’t get his fingers under the tail to ease the pressure. Daniel choked. His red face was turning blue and when he gasped, the thing inched toward his mouth. Daniel clamped his mouth shut and tried to jerk his face to the side, but it didn’t help. Rorschach felt the thing tense under his hands and saw the tail tighten, forcing another gasp out of Daniel. Rorschach caught a glimpse of the thing’s underside and something was coming out - and it looked like- and it was reaching for Daniel’s open mouth - and it wanted-

“No!“ Rorschach screamed without realizing the sound came from him. It could’ve been Daniel screaming if he had been able. Rorschach clamped one of his hands over Daniel’s mouth, trying to block the disgusting thing from entering any part of his friend. The proboscis bumped insistently at the back of his hand while Daniel’s mouth worked desperately for air under it. He forced his other arm between the thing’s belly and Daniel’s head, trying to lever it back. 

The spider-like claws left bloody furrows in Dan’s skin as Rorschach crammed his heel into the gap his arm had made. He had to roll Daniel to pin the monster to the floor with his foot. Maybe it wouldn’t let go until it had strangled Daniel completely, but it wouldn’t be allowed to defile him. 

The thing let go so suddenly that Rorschach staggered. It released Daniel and sprang at him. His hands were already raised, and that was the only thing that kept it from having full contact against his face. He felt the proboscis stab hard at his mouth through the mask and his stomach turned. He felt the tail lash around him, but his arm was in the way, so it couldn’t put as much pressure on his throat as it had Daniel’s. The mask was keeping it off of him, out of him, for the moment, but he had to get it off. 

The crab legs were no thicker than fingers, no reason they couldn’t be broken. He struggled for a grip on the thing, felt some of the segments shift, and the leak of fluid. If the thing could bleed, he could kill it. He twisted harder, heard a crunch, felt a new gush, and then felt the burn as his gloves were eaten through. Acid! _Acid?!?_ It would dissolve his gloves and his skin and his mask, and the thought of that had him wrenching away from it with a furious scream. 

The claws tore through the mask and his head, leaving long scrapes in both, but whatever it was seemed to have had enough because it sprang away again, this time, zipping out the door that still hung open. 

Getting the gloves off was first priority. The leather was still sizzling. Drops started to fall on them as he wrestled them off. It wasn’t tears, it was black and white fluid starting to leak as the mask dissolved. He tore that off too. As much as it also tore at his heart to see it sizzle into a puddle with his gloves, it could be replaced easier than the layer underneath. 

He had broken the lock, so there was no way to bar the door in case the thing came back. He braced the nearest end table against it to keep it closed and went to check on Daniel. He was still on the floor, still clutching his throat and thrashing. Rorschach hurried to his side and grabbed his shoulders to roll him over. Dan was too disoriented to realize he was facing a friend and tried to thrash away from him. 

“No!” Rorschach remembered that Daniel had never seen him like this. It was a stranger pawing at him, if he was even aware that Rorschach was there at all. “It’s me! Daniel! It’s me!” He tried to pull Dan’s head down to force him to look and let some recognition in, but at the first touch to his face, Dan keened and jerked away. Still anxious to calm him down, get some sort of explanation, he moved his grip to the heaving shoulders. “Daniel! Stop! You’re safe. I have you.”

Dan gasped, a deep, strangled sound. His neck was bruised and raw from the thing’s tail. How long had it had him? His glassy, terrified eyes squeezed shut and his head lolled back. His hands grabbed fistfuls of Rorschach’s coat and as his weight collapsed backwards, dragged Rorschach up over his torso. His whole body was lurching with the effort of pulling in enough air. Rorschach straddled him, trying to pull him up to a sitting position. 

Dan arched under him, lifting his knees clear of the floor, and pulling his chest against his own by the lapels. Rorschach gasped too. Under him, Dan was painfully hard. He could feel the throb through both of their clothes, completely out of sync with his sputtering heartbeat and sucking breaths. Shock sent a hot tingle through Rorschach’s body. He had heard of erotic asphyxiation, knew about the disseminated muscle relaxation in hanging victims, but it didn’t stop the first irrational rush of horror. What had that thing done to Daniel??

Dan heaved under him again and the horror melted into another tingling wave of warmth. It combusted into shame a heartbeat later as Dan gasped the first syllable of his name and choked on the second. He hid his face against Rorschach’s shoulder, forcing the gasps into sobs. He was still erect, but the friction wasn’t insistent now that he was getting air. Rorschach carefully shifted away from it. Dan hadn’t let go of him, but his eyes opened again at the sound of his name. 

They panted together a little while. Dan stared at the new face in front of him. Rorschach saw his confusion and hesitation and kept speaking to him, letting the familiar voice fill in the gaps. As Dan’s body recovered, his expression settled too, accepting what was in front of him.

“What was that?” Rorschach asked when he thought Dan could stand to talk about it. “Where did it come from?”

“Hollis,” Dan whispered. “Called me. Watch news at his place.” He swallowed hard and winced. “Aircraft spotted. Thought I built it. To come out of retirement. Wish I had. Footage was bad, but awesome. Archie could never move like that.” His grip finally relaxed in Rorschach’s coat. His arms fell down to his sides. “Heard it following me home. From Hollis’ junkyard. Thought it was a rat. Too fast to see. Don’t know how it got in.”

“Think there could be more?” Rorschach asked. Dan shuddered, almost convulsed. 

“God, I hope not.” But then he realized what Rorschach might mean. “Oh Jesus, Hollis!” Rorschach was already up and going for the phone. When there was no answer, Dan struggled to his feet. “Better go check on him.”

“In no shape to walk.”

“So call us a cab.”

The cab ride was hard for Dan too. He was still dazed and shaken and Rorschach thought he passed out for a few minutes on the trip. It seemed doubtful that he would doze off after such trauma, but his head slid to rest on Rorschach‘s shoulder. When Rorschach tried to elbow him awake, Dan clung to his arm. Rorschach grumbled, but allowed it, chalking it up to trauma again. Rorschach kept a close eye on him anyway, for any change in color or trouble breathing, or inappropriate physical response.

They got to Mason’s and he wasn’t home. The door wasn’t locked and the lights were on, which was odd enough to worry them both. They looked at each other and a scuttling sound in the junkyard made Dan flinch. They went inside. 

“Left in a hurry,” Rorschach said at once, looking at some things on the floor that looked like they had been knocked off the table. “Chair still warm. We just missed him.”

“So he’s ok,” Dan was relieved. “What made him take off so suddenly though?” Rorschach made the vocal equivalent of a shrug and cast around the chair for anything that would’ve triggered a hasty exit. He was halfway looking for claw marks on the floor or upholstery, but the opened mail caught his eyes too. Bad news, maybe?

Dan was about to protest Rorschach’s snooping when a faint whine made him stop and notice Phantom under a corner table. The old dog looked pitifully at him and he knelt to stroke the drooping ears. 

“You look about like I feel,” he said. “Where’s the boss?” Phantom’s sad eyes looked around the room without his head. He heaved a heavy sigh and swallowed hard. Dan gave him a pat on the shoulder that made him yelp, startling both Rorschach and Dan. 

“Dog injured?” Rorschach asked. 

“I.. don’t see any mark on him,” Dan said. “But he sure doesn’t want me touching him. What’s the matter, boy?” 

Phantom didn’t answer and Rorschach looked warily at the dog before casting around again. This time he focused on the police radio. It would be just like Hollis to sit around listening to old police transmissions, mulling over memories of masks and badges. It was easy to imagine Dan ending up like that and Rorschach punched a button before that thought could change his expression. 

The radio screeched to life, making them both jump again. It was pandemonium over the police channels, officers screaming at each other, either demanding explanations or wailing about officers down. Something had happened at the police station and officers were dead. The word ‘butchered’ got Rorschach’s attention. His head tilted, remembering the mob hideout, and the bodies hanging from rafters. 

“Went to help maybe?” he asked. “Any friends of his still on the force?”

“M-maybe,” Dan said, his horrified look coming back. “What are you thinking?”

“Could be nothing.” Rorschach started for the door. “Don’t look so worried.”

“You first,” Dan grumbled and Rorschach remembered again that he was unmasked. If Dan had been belligerent at all, they might’ve argued, but Dan just ran a hand over his bruised throat and hurried after. 

 

*Got Dan's address from his driver's license in the source book.


	4. Chapter 4

The hysteria over the radio had Mason heading into town. He didn’t know what he thought he could to do help, but white knight instincts died hard. He had been on edge since he had seen the footage on the news of that mystery airship. It had felt like a portent, and he had been halfway hoping it was some retirement project of Dan’s, not that that wouldn’t be portentous itself. 

He had fallen asleep in his chair after Dan left and woken up on the floor. He had laughed at himself, noticed the beginning of a sore throat from sleeping on his cold floor all night, and gone to see if he had any orange juice in the freezer. He had listened to the radio to see if there was more about the ship and then the screaming had started.

He had hurried downtown, and found the station in chaos. He had grabbed an officer, a kid who didn’t look old enough to be a cop, and shouted enough official-sounding questions that he was let in. 

The inside of the station was a bloodbath. Bullet holes dappled the walls. Blood was everywhere. There were several officers dead. Gaping holes had been blown through them, and the stink of cauterized flesh hung in as fine a mist as the blood. There were headless bodies too. Mason noticed that those had weapons drawn. What the hell could walk into a police station that was swarming with cops and take them all on?

Mason thought of the ship on the news again. Was it a new villain? New team of villains? What better time to arrive than after all the heroes were gone? What better statement to make than to wipe out the city’s law enforcement in their own house? Anxiety tightened Mason’s chest, sending up a little throb of pain. Leaning on a desk to compose himself, he noticed the blood trail leading up the back stairs. 

He followed it up to the roof, careful not to step in it in case the CSI teams could make something of the splatters. The roof was cold and wet and a scraping sound had him crouching in the shadows. He moved around the humming rooftop air systems. Maybe he wasn’t as fast or as strong as he had been in the old days, but he could still move quietly as ever. He heard something clink and crept along the far wall to get a clear view. 

His foot hit something and it clinked, the sound he had just heard. He froze, waiting for movement or a new sound. The insistent need to cough burned up the back of his throat, but he swallowed it down. Nothing moved, nothing happened. He risked a glance down at what he had stumbled over, and profoundly wished he hadn’t. It was a mesh bag of some kind, stretched in a black net over the blank stares of three severed heads. He exhaled hard, stepping back. He should’ve expected it, but it still hit him square in the gut. 

Something grabbed him around the scruff of the neck and hoisted him up as if he weighed nothing. His back was slammed hard into a wall, driving the air out of his lungs. Red lights played over him and before he could even register that there was nothing there, something flickered into view. It was huge, bigger than Hooded Justice had ever been, probably eight feet tall and wearing a mask of smooth metal, gently ridged like the face of a viper.

“Hunh,” it said. The voice was weird through the speaker and Mason’s teeth ground. He knew it. Masked villains, back in force. He struggled against the grip and found himself dangling helpless. It tilted its head as if considering if he was worth killing or tossing aside. The mask looked him over carefully, but seemed to pause at his chest. It made a soft sound like the rattle of wet sinuses and then he heard the unmistakable sound of metal unsheathing. Twin blades, mounted on the wrist, were suddenly aimed at his chest. 

“Think again!” Mason barked, and hauled off to swing one of his best haymakers at the mask. It connected with a crack. The mask didn’t break, but the head was knocked to the side and the blades came back up. 

“Hollis!“ someone screamed. There was a whirr and something else impacted the other side of the mask and fell to the rooftop. It was a grappling hook, suddenly whisked back for another shot and there were people running forward. The mask threw him, again as if he weighed nothing, and he collided with one of his rescuers.

They both landed in a heap on the wet roof

“Hollis?” It was Dan, pale and disheveled, even his voice. Mason didn’t answer right away, rolling in time to see the mask grab up the bag of heads and jump from the edge of the roof. Hard on its heels was a man in a trench coat that was only halfway familiar. 

“Rorschach!” Dan called next, but he stopped at the edge of the roof. He cast around, like a hound searching for a scent, then homed in on a sound to his right. He didn’t jump, but he did sprint around to the fire escape. 

“Are you hurt?” Dan was asking him. Mason shook his head and they helped each other up. Mason straightened his back out, only to double over coughing. He winced and pressed a fist to his chest. Dan made a concerned noise, by Mason waved him off. 

“What was that?”

“It took their heads, Danny!” he said, the outrage coming back. 

“It’s been that kind of night,” Dan sighed. “You’re sure you’re all right?” He had gone to the edge of the building to see which way Rorschach had gone. 

“He didn’t want me,” Mason said, following him. 

“Looked like he did,” Dan spotted the direction Rorschach was headed and started after. 

“No,” Mason had to jog to keep up, which didn’t help the pain in his chest. “Just putting an old dog out of its misery. Did you notice? It only killed the ones that were combat-ready. The sumbitch wanted more of a challenge than I could give him.”

That was remarkably strong language for Mason and it was just another thing to add to the list of wrongness in the air that night.


	5. Chapter 5

Rorschach hadn’t broken stride since his feet touched the ground, but he kept losing the trail. It seemed obvious that the headhunter from the police station had also been behind Jimmy Splatter’s decapitation. Whoever he was, he had been about to gut Hollis Mason, which infuriated Rorschach for Daniel‘s sake. Daniel had already been throttled and nearly violated by some hideous spider-crab-stingray thing and if Rorschach hadn’t gone to grudgingly ask for his help, he might’ve been dead when Rorschach got there. 

Bad enough to lose him to retirement, couldn’t bear to think of him dead. It spurred Rorschach on, following only blurs of movement and bare traces of sign through the streets. He found himself grateful for the rain, for the shallow, silver traps it left for the headhunter to slip and splash in. He followed it to the riverfront, under a bridge, and into an old maintenance tunnel. 

Once into the tunnel, into the dark, the headhunter stopped running. He turned to face Rorschach. He towered over him, but that fact didn’t even slow him down. The headhunter tilted his head to look at him as he stalked up, a gesture close enough to his own to annoy him. Then the big killer started disarming. He tossed down its spear and something round and sharp-looking. Rorschach was willing to bet he wasn’t preparing to surrender. 

When the last weapon was in a pile, they clashed in the dark. The headhunter was huge. Rorschach’s hat barely reached his ribcage and the power he lashed out with was inhuman. Rorschach was smaller and faster, but this wasn’t some slow-moving thug who relied on his brute strength. The headhunter moved like a snake-catcher and Rorschach knew that if one of those fists connected, he wouldn’t get the chance to recover. 

He didn’t have time to process the headhunter’s appearance. Every sense was devoted to combat, so it didn’t matter if the green-gray, pebbled bodysuit was entirely too warm and fluid, didn’t sink in that this wasn’t a martial art he recognized and he was pretty sure he had fought a little bit of everything. His whole being was concentrated on the fight. 

The headhunter didn’t wear much visible armor except for the mask. Rorschach saw the line of a rib as the headhunter gave up trying to just crush him and lunged to tackle him. He rolled under most of the leap and put all his strength into a punch upward and inward, straight into the curve of the bone. It splintered, and he dug in, hopefully driving sharp pieces into the lungs. A hissing gasp splattered from the inside of the metal mask and a kneecap as big as his own head slammed upwards into his stomach. It drove all the breath out of him and lifted him off the floor. It felt like it connected with his spine. 

A massive hand seized his collar. This is what he had been afraid of. He had left an opening to make his own strike and it had been taken. His shoulders collided with something solid, but there wasn’t any air left to squeeze out of him. Hopefully he had injured the headhunter badly enough that even if it killed him, it would be slower and weaker by the time Daniel had to fight it. 

The thought of Daniel made him lash out one more time, under the jaw, to do some more damage to the mask. Something creaked under his hand and a tube came loose and he heard the hiss of escaping air. The grip on his collar sank into his throat.

“Think again!” It was Mason’s voice, with all the outrage that the original had shouted back on the police station roof, but tinnier. A recording? He heard the blades unsheathe, just as Mason had. So the over-sized freak hadn’t tossed all his weapons after all. And, a thought lit up through his pain like white neon, neither had Rorschach. 

The blades moved to a decapitating strike and Rorschach whipped out the grappling gun. Both weapons were aimed at the other’s throat, but only one was projectile. The hook shot into the headhunter’s neck, making him drop Rorschach and sending him staggering back. They both hit the floor wheezing. Rorschach got as far as his knees, but couldn’t make his back straighten out to let him up. The headhunter’s mask was oozing bright green fluid and he was struggling feebly with it.

Rorschach lurched forward. This might be his only chance. If he could get himself upright, he could kill this monster and be done. The headhunter finally pushed the mask off and spat out another splash of vivid green. He turned back to Rorschach, who found it very hard to keep moving. 

A mask under a mask. Had to be. Couldn’t be. Bleeding and breathing painfully out of a domed skull, with small predatory eyes, and a mouth with flared mandibles. It made a noise at him, a wet chitter, and then went very still except for the one hand slowly reaching for the pile of weapons. Rorschach froze too. It wasn’t looking at him anymore, but over his shoulder at the darkness behind him.


	6. Chapter 6

Oldest trick in the book. He would look away and then it would bury that spear in his back. But just as insistent, he felt the presence of something behind him, heard the rough exhale of breath over sharp teeth, the hushed click of angular feet on the cement. Against all his own better judgment, Rorschach turned to look behind him. He didn’t see anything and looked sharply back at the headhunter. It had the shoulder-mounted weapon in its hands now, aimed right at him. It purred, a low wet sound in its throat. 

Rorschach dodged without thinking, visions of the triple holes burned through the cops’ chests flashing through his mind. Something cracked into the cement he had just left and he saw something shiny and black stab in and withdraw from behind him. The headhunter fired, not at Rorschach, but at the thing that was leaping out at both of them. It was shiny and black with a stabbing scorpion tail, and faceless, phallic head. 

The blast caught it in the midsection, tearing it in two. It screamed and collapsed, both halves still fighting. The back legs kicked and the tail thrashed, still trying to impale something. The front half spasmed too, clawlike hands scrabbling at Rorschach. Its mouth opened and a secondary mouth lunged out at him, withdrew and lunged, over and over, like a fanged, sexual pantomime. 

Rorschach’s stomach turned. It reminded him of what the thing at Daniel’s had been trying to force down his throat, of Daniel’s erection, all of them seeking entrance, straining to get inside, somehow. Rorschach gagged, trying to get up, get away, if only so he could crush the obscene thing under his heel. 

There was metallic _shnk_ , and juicy crunch. The headhunter had put the end of his spear through the thing’s head where the eye would’ve been in a decent creature. It stopped moving. Rorschach was bracing himself for the spear to come his way when a sizzle became audible. The headhunter stepped back to avoid a puddle of ichor oozing out of the thing. It sputtered and ate through the cement. Acid. Just like the spider thing. Had it been just the baby? Is this what it grew up into?

The headhunter was looking at him, waiting for him to get up. That was polite. He struggled back to his feet. It felt like he had been hit square in the abs by a train. Pulling himself all the way upright was excruciating, but he noticed the headhunter was holding its side too. It said something that sounded both phlegm-y and creaky. Rorschach ignored it, put his hat back on, and slid painfully back into a fighting stance. The mandibles flared wide and then tucked in, maybe the monster version of a grin. It vocalized again, slowly and carefully this time, as if to an idiot child.

“ _Kainde amedha_ *,” it said, pointing at the dead thing. Rorschach stared, mind humming. So it wanted to talk. He brought his hands up, linked the thumbs, and hooked his fingers into an imitation of the spider-crabs legs. He made scuttling motions up the headhunter’s chest, careful not to actually touch it, then made a sudden grabbing motion at its mouth. He pulled back and pointed to the dead thing again. The headhunter hissed thoughtfully. It dragged a fingertip down its throat, to its chest, tapped there, and then balled a fist at the spot. It flexed its fingers like a pulse, gradually expanding its fist. When its fingers were outstretched again, it shot a hand out towards Rorschach. 

They looked at each other in silence after that. Hideous inhuman monster. Ugly, unmasked human. Rorschach wasn’t sure he was interpreting the charade right, but it made his skin crawl anyway. The headhunter made a new sound and shoved the spear handle into his hands. It was moving in hurried jerks now, fastening the tri-laser gun to its shoulder and grabbing up the other weapons. Something dripped onto the brim of Rorschach’s hat and he looked up to see several sets of teeth grinning at him from the ceiling. 

 

*Predator word for Alien in the Perry AvP books.


	7. Chapter 7

With no flashlights or night-vision, it was slow going through the tunnel. Dan was sure his old partner had come this way, even though Hollis saw no sign of it. Another stabbing pain in his chest had dropped him to his knees on the way over and slowed them down, so Hollis wasn’t going to cause more delay by arguing. He felt fine now and was sorry he had scared Dan so badly. He knew how it must look to have an old man clutch his chest and grimace in the middle of a run. It bothered his pride too, but he told himself as he had told Dan, that it was just a cough and probably a pulled muscle from being manhandled on the roof. 

A flash of red light in the dark tunnel ahead got their attention and it was followed by a weird screech. Dan broke into a run. Hollis jogged after, careful not to reawaken whatever the pain had been. The light ahead was a dim green glow now and as they got closer they could see it reflecting off an attacking party of strange animals. A few yards closer and they could see exactly what was being attacked. 

Rorschach didn’t have a lot of finesse with the double-bladed spear he was slinging around, but didn’t seem to need any. If a weapon was solid, he could bludgeon with it, if it had an edge he could chop with it. He was keeping a small circle clear around himself, but looked like he was lagging. The spear was too long for him. It was probably also too heavy. 

The overgrown killer from the police station was there too, shooting with a shoulder-mounted explosive gun and slicing anything in close range with the same wrist blades that Hollis had nearly gotten the business end of. Whatever this was, it was bad enough that Rorschach and the killer had joined forces. What were they fighting?

At first, Hollis thought they were dogs, some kind of sleek, black dogs. Then, he took in the scale of their size, and when one went bipedal to look at him, his brain slowly began to grasp that the only place it had ever seen anything like them was in nightmares. How could it be looking at him? It didn’t have eyes! But then it sprang, not at him, but at Dan.

It was big enough to bowl Dan over and Hollis ran to help him. He plowed into it from the side and it whipped around with its claws up. The unnatural, alien form of it should’ve made him falter but the hero part of his brain remembered fighting thugs with razors and knives and was already processing how to duck and dodge the attack when it came. Except it didn’t come. 

It stopped and tilted its sleek head at him as if considering. Terrified, furious, frustrated, Hollis hauled off and swung at it. His fist cracked against the thing’s skull and it lunged at him, but it was a false charge and it turned away as soon as he stepped back. 

What the hell was going on? Why was everything avoiding a fight with him tonight? It was like he wasn’t worth fighting. The fury and frustration drowned out the terror. He grabbed the thing’s barbed tail as it started back to the main fight. 

“Don’t turn your back on me!” It turned, hissing. It dragged him in a circle, tiger by the tail, but only snapped and lunged at him halfheartedly. The battle was going on behind them, flashes and screams and sizzling crunches. The thing seemed to come to some sort of decision because the tail in his grip suddenly wrapped around him like a python and slammed him against the wall. The thing was up in his face in the next instant, rubbery lips pulling back from oozing teeth. It hissed and he saw the internal jaws click hungrily.

But still nothing happened! It released him, not gently at all, but without any injuries, and started to turn away from him again. Then something whirred through the air, severing its head in a yellow splash and Hollis found himself staring up at the massive cop-killer again. The blades, Hollis thought. Curved and jagged, like a bad dream of fish hooks, they aimed vaguely at his throat and then settled lower. Was it finally going to stab him? He braced himself for the swing, shifting into a defensive post as it pulled the blades back. He heard Dan scream something and saw Rorschach turn at the sound too. 

The headhunter was knocked a step over as Dan plowed into him. Hollis took advantage of that to attack again as well. With three of their targets in one spot, the hissing black monsters turned their backs on Rorschach to attack the group. One sprang at Dan’s back and Rorschach lunged with a scream to intercept it. 

The headhunter knocked Dan away and back into the leaping creature. He fell back under Hollis’ attack, but then grabbed him and used him as a shield against the other two creatures. They stopped immediately. Rorschach had run to help Dan. The thing had bitten him with the inner jaws and he was thrashing to get loose while it tried to skewer him with its tail. Rorschach was afraid a headstab would lock its teeth in Dan’s shoulder so he swung at its neck. 

Too late he remembered the acid blood, and when the yellow ooze splashed over Dan, the spots started to smoke and sizzle at once. Rorschach gasped out a horrified sound and wrenched the dying monster off his partner. More blood oozed, red this time, and he started tearing off Dan’s coat and the shirt under it. He pulled off his own scarf to staunch the bite. Dan gasped and swore under his breath and then grabbed Rorschach around the waist to yank him away from a new attack. 

The headhunter shoved Hollis in the way and the charge stopped again. The hunter had Hollis by the neck and while he grunted and struggled, it held him out between them and the black creatures. 

“Hollis!” Dan gasped, trying to get up. Rorschach helped him, but kept an eye on the hunter. It caught his stare and tapped a huge finger on Hollis’ chest. 

“No,“ Rorschach breathed, tightening his grip on Dan. One of the four remaining creatures hissed and fled off into the dark. The last three fidgeted, but hunkered down to wait for one of them to move. 

“What-” Dan was breathless, bewildered, and fighting off shock. He staggered forward a step. “What is it- Put him down!” 

“They won’t attack him,” Rorschach said. “For… whatever reason.” He didn’t want to think about what that reason seemed to be. He looked at the hunter again. It was breathing painfully, and was leaking bright green blood from a dozen small flesh wounds. “We have to get you both to a hospital.”

“What?” Dan tried to refocus on him. 

“You’re hurt. Mason's hurt. We have to go.” Rorschach made a sharp sound to get the hunter’s attention and jerked his head towards the tunnel entrance. The three creatures noticed too, their tails lashing. The two on either side got up . The middle one stayed crouched. The hunter made a faint chuckling sound and nodded its own head toward the structure in the dark beyond the creatures. Rorschach hadn’t seen the news footage of the mysterious aircraft, but Dan had and he gasped as he recognized it. 

The hunter made another sound, this one longer and with more syllables. The two standing creatures began to slink to either side and the middle one began creeping forward. The hunter took a deep, rattling breath and then flung Hollis aside to charge the middle one with an animal roar and the wrist blades. He sliced through its head, from snout to the tip of its skull. The other two sprang on him from either side. Dan and Rorschach were scrambling to help Hollis up and hopefully run in the confusion, when a new sound made the tunnel vibrate. The creatures abandoned the hunter, who staggered to one knee. His horrible visage was gap-mouthed and wide-eyed, a bad sign no matter what species you were.

From behind the hunter’s ship, something huge was appearing out of the dark. It warbled out a crooning, monstrous call and Hollis gasped as something in his chest shifted. The creature coming was many times bigger than the others, and crowned with a heavy ridge around its skull. It crawled over the ship and the smaller ones capered around its feet.


	8. Chapter 8

The headhunter fired his shoulder cannon at the approaching monster, but his struggle with the two smaller creatures had damaged it. One blast did fire before the laser sparked and popped and the hunter had to claw it off his shoulder. One of the small creatures leaped to take the shot for the queen, (and they knew instinctively that’s what she was) dying in a sizzling splatter. Her remaining soldiers took up defensive positions around her, and she advanced. 

All thoughts of what she was and what was happening shattered when the hunter suddenly seized Hollis up again and aimed the wristblades at his chest. Dan cried out and the queen stopped. Rorschach kept his grip on Dan, partly to keep pressure on the bite, partly to keep him from getting in between the two predators again.

“Stay there,” Hollis hissed. He was half throttled and pinned between blades and the wall, but still worried about Dan too. Rorschach felt a twist in his own chest. This shouldn’t happen to the old hero. Dan shouldn’t have to see it.

“What is it doing?” Dan sputtered.

“Has one inside him,” Rorschach whispered. Dan made a high-pitched sound of panicked confusion. “The thing at your house? Followed you from his place. It was trying to- it wanted- it, it got him.”

“What?” Hollis demanded. Held between the hideous monster queen’s bared teeth and the hideous killer’s blades, he had still managed to catch their conversation. 

“One inside you,” Rorschach said a little louder. The drones looked toward him. Hollis’ face crumpled into something puzzled and horrified. “They won’t risk hurting it to kill you, but need to get you to a hospital before it eats its way out.” 

Hollis’ lips moved, but they didn’t hear what he said. 

“What are we going to do??” Dan’s voice was still too high from pain and fear. “We can’t stay like this long. We’ll never make it out of the tunnel before they catch us. It’s a standoff now, but eventually one of them will charge and-“

A beep interrupted them. The headhunter was punching some button on his arm apparatus with his blade hand. A series of red lights came on and then begin counting down. 

“Oh, “ Dan whispered. “That can’t be good.”

The standoff was now a countdown. The headhunter hissed defiance at the queen who tilted her huge head as if affronted. She arched herself up, swan-like and thrummed. Hollis began struggling harder. 

“Grab the cord!” Rorschach barked suddenly and fired his grappling gun into the wall over Hollis’ shoulder. The headhunter jumped, turning to glare at him. In that instant, Hollis grabbed the cable, the queen lunged forward to sink both sets of teeth into the hunter’s throat, and the two drones shot forward. 

The cable yanked Hollis across the floor and out of reach. He landed with a painful crunch. His pained grunt was jerked into a gasp as a drone grabbed him and pulled him back. Rorschach stabbed it through the head with the spear, but its tail snapped forward like a scorpion’s to skewer his shoulder. It died, but the barbs kept him from being able to pull the tail out. 

Hollis caught him as he staggered back, then dropped him to lunge forward with his arms held out. It made the second drone stop, but the third one just jumped over him to tackle Rorschach the rest of the way down. 

The queen screamed in sudden, terrible pain. She had dropped the throated hunter and stepped over him to join the fight. With his last strength, the hunter had whipped out the round, spinning blade and sent it chainsawing through one of her back legs. It went straight through, severing the limb and spraying the hunter with acid blood. Too far gone to scream, he only held his arm with the blinking lights clear of the acid as it ate through his battered body.

The drones scampered to help the queen and Dan grabbed the spear from the dead one.

“It’s gonna be ok, buddy, it’s gonna be ok!” He was babbling, sobbing as he sliced the thing’s tail off. He took one arm and Hollis took the other and they ran as fast and hard as they were able. The cut tail streamed acid, but they didn’t have time to worry about that when the explosion lifted them off their feet and blasted them back into open air in a shower of rubble and green fire.


	9. Chapter 9

Dan woke up in the hospital with a jerk. He could hear his own heart monitor screeching off to the side. Everything hurt and it took him a minute to remember why; the teeth in his shoulder, the black barb sticking out of his partner’s back, the impact of the explosion bouncing his body along the pavement. 

His breathing was shuddering and hitching. He almost thought there was someone else in the room. Where was Rorschach? And Hollis? He lurched out of bed, got tangled in some hoses and had to sit down to remove everything. The stuttering beep from the monitor fell to a steady whine as he pulled it off. Once free, he staggered to the door. 

The hallway was cluttered with people and staff running around. 

“I don’t KNOW where he is!” an orderly was shouting over the commotion. “He’s SUPPOSED to be in SURGERY!” Dan grabbed her arm.

“I need help,” he said. 

“Get back in bed,” she snapped. “You can’t be wandering around. We’ve got too many people-“

He wanted to slam her into the wall, but didn’t have the strength. 

“There were two people with me,” he tried to growl. “Two men. One had been stabbed through the shoulder and-“

“Oh my God,” she gasped. “You’re one of the terrorists.”

“Wh-what? Terrorists? What?” He must’ve looked as confused as he felt, because she calmed down and pushed him off. 

“You come with me,” she said and started off at a quick pace. “Do you remember the explosion?”

“Sort of,” he was having trouble keeping up. 

“Terrorists blew up a section of downtown. One of them got caught in the blast but he still had a bomb on him. They think he swallowed it, the sick bastard.”

“What…? Who?” They rounded a corner where there were some police stood around the information desk. The orderly pointed at him. 

“This guy just woke up,” she said. “He was one of the three found at the scene.”

It was dark out. Dan could see himself reflected in the sliding doors. He was bandaged and bruised and embarrassingly pathetic looking. He also had the attention of everyone in the room. 

“I just trying to find out what happened to my friends,” he said. “We… we saw that plane on the news and-“ He wracked his mind for any alias either of his friends might have used before giving up. “The old man said the only place big enough to hide something like that was in the old tunnels and we had had some brews and so we went down to check.” He was a terrible liar, but he put a hand to his head to make his wavering look like injury weakness. “And … and… the whole thing blew to pieces! I… Are they ok? You said you found three, are they all right?”

The cops looked at each other and then at the nurse behind the desk. 

“One is still being examined,” she said after a moment of hesitation that made his stomach twist. “And the other came out of surgery a little while ago.”

“Is he ok?” Dan asked again. “Can I see him?” He was trying to think. Had they found the thing inside Hollis? Was that the surgery? Had they recognized Rorschach in his costume? Was that the examination? And terrorists? That was as good an excuse as any. Made more sense than monsters even though it made his battered head throb. He was determined not to faint. 

The head nurse and the cops traded looks again, but she nodded and got up. He limped along behind her as quickly as he could. Chasing the first nurse had taken most of his strength. She opened a door and nodded inside. It wasn’t Hollis as he has suspected, but Rorschach. He was unconscious and his pulse sounded feeble on the monitor. Unmasked and helpless, he didn’t look natural at all. 

“Full of holes,” the nurse said. “He caught some shrapnel to the chest and shoulder. And some acid burns all the way through his thighs. Good thing it hit there and no higher.”

“God,” Dan whispered. He reached a hand out to touch his old partner, just to reassure himself that this pale, still creature was still alive and familiar. Overhead, the lights flickered and the nurse swore. 

“We’re missing some surgeons,” she said. “You can sit with him awhile if you want. There’s gonna be some questions for both of you soon enough.”

“W-wait…” he half-turned. “What, what about my-“ He couldn’t help but falter. “My dad? Is he ok?” Her face went completely blank.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” she said and she was gone.

There was nothing to do but sit by the bed, feeling all his various pains synchronize with the weak rhythm coming from all the machines attached to Rorschach. He was starting to be aware of a faint smell that he had a feeling was the acid burns. Holes all the way through his thighs, the nurse had said. It made him feel a little sick. 

His head hurt. His shoulder throbbed and the rest of him felt like he had been gone over with a hammer. He wanted to go look for Hollis, find out how the examination was going. Had they gotten that thing out of him? Is that what they were examining?

Enquirer’s headline: Retired Hero Found Pregnant With Parasite Monster, his dazed mind told him. It might have been trying to make him laugh, but the memory of those impossibly strong fingers clutching his skull as that thing jabbed at his face, trying to get in overpowered it. He did gag then, and when it bent him over, he could barely straighten up again. His bare feet had gone numb on the cold tile and he couldn’t imagine them holding him.

The lights flickered again. For a moment, he thought he might be blacking out. 

The lights came back, but the woozy sensation stayed. Dan let his head slump against the back of the chair. 

“Ok,” he said. “We’ll rest. Get our wind back.”

Rorschach didn’t answer, and Dan wouldn’t have heard it if he had.


	10. Chapter 10

When his eyes opened again, Dan's head had calmed down, but his back hurt worse than ever. His shoulder had actually felt better with the thing's teeth still in it. He had no idea what time it was. The clock on the wall had stopped. The room was dark except for the emergency lights. 

The heart monitors were still beeping, so all the power wasn’t gone. Maybe it was the generators.

“Daniel.” The sound nearly made his heart stop. It was weird to hear the familiar voice from an actual human face that he still only barely recognized. 

“How long have you been awake?”

“Off and on. Thought I heard a scream, not sure how long ago. Was quiet after that.”

Dan got up with a hiss of pain and limped to the door.

“I don’t see anyone,” he said. “It is pretty quiet.”

“Good time to leave,” said Rorschach, sitting up with a hiss of his own. 

“Are you serious? We’re both half dead. And they think we might be involved with terrorists,” Dan said. “We don’t want to make ourselves look more suspicious.”

“Hollis?” 

“I… don’t know. Last I heard, he was still being examined.” 

Rorschach tried to get up and couldn’t. Dan saw the surprise flicker across the face only to be kicked aside by denial. He tried again and got one leg out from under his blanket and stopped when he saw how bandaged it was. 

“Acid burns,” Dan explained. “We are hurt too badly to make any kind of getaway, buddy. I told them how we went over to Hollis’ and had a few beers, and then went to go look for that aircraft we saw on the news.”

“They check him for the thing?” 

“I don’t know. If they checked him for internal injuries and they pretty much had to, don’t you think? They would have to notice it.”

The power skipped again. Rorschach grumbled something. 

“Bad feeling,” he said aloud. “Lock the door.”

Dan wasn’t even going to argue since there wasn’t a lock on the door. That news had Rorschach scrambling to get up, though. The pain made him change color and collapse. He fell off the bed, dragging iv tubes and monitors to the side. Dan tried to rush over and ended up staggering, hitting his knees hard when he tried to kneel by Rorschach’s side. 

“Door!” Rorschach choked out. He was translucent from pain, having left pale behind long ago. He thrashed and wouldn’t allow himself to be helped until Dan found a rubber doorstop to cram under the door. He pulled the blinds too, just to be safe and then limped back to try to get Rorschach off the floor. 

He hit the call button as discretely as possible. Seeing Rorschach in such pain, hell, seeing him at all, was unnerving. He needed some morphine or something and Dan would’ve been happy to have some as well. That would be worth another trip to move the doorstop. Rorschach, wracked by agony, didn’t seem to notice. 

The bandages around his chest and shoulder were bunched, so Dan did his best to ignore the pain in his own shoulder and tried to coax Rorschach to lie flat again.

“Door’s blocked, windows covered,” he said. “We’re safe for now. We’ll be ok. Just try to settle down a little. 

“Could be more,” Rorschach moaned. “The one after you got away before I could kill it and by now there could be more. “

Remembering the attack in his house made Dan falter, but he forced his hands to keep smoothing the bandages. The occasional touch of actual skin made Rorschach flinch more than the injuries did. Dan was jumpy enough that the faint scream down the hallway made him jerk against the bed, shaking them both. 

It’s a hospital,” he said to reassure them both. “All kinds of screams in a hospital.”

“Not helping,” growled Rorschach, still the wrong color and shaking. He pawed at his nightstand drawer, maybe looking for something to use as a weapon. Silence fell again outside. Rorschach couldn’t find anything more lethal than half a pencil, but he palmed it. A click brought them both to attention. There was another, and then two more before they recognized the sound of the doors being tested down the hall. 

Dan took his chair and wedged it under the door, backing up quickly to lean against the bed. It might just be an orderly come to do a night check, but he could feel Rorschach tense and trembling, and ready to stab whatever it was with a piece of pencil. 

They saw a shadow pass by the blinds, and the shape was too oblong to be a human skull. God, no. Neither of them were so much as breathing as their door knob rattled. Then the door itself shook in its frame. Dan closed his eyes for a moment, silently praying. 

There was a soft hissing exhale and then a sound down the hall, like a gasp. The shadow leaped past and there was another scream.


	11. Chapter 11

They huddled together as quietly as they could. Hours had passed with only distant sounds down the hallways. There were screams and bangs and the power had flickered on and off a few times before finally going off and staying off. There were still some lights on in the equipment hooked to Rorschach, so there was probably a generator working somewhere. 

Dan had braced the door with everything he could move quietly. There hadn’t been a lot of furniture in the room, so Rorschach had moved over to give him space on the bed. It was cramped and painful to squeeze both their battered bodies into the narrow frame. Whatever painkillers had been in either of their systems had worn off a long time ago, and the seriousness of the situation had sunk in with the pain. 

They were trapped. They had no weapons, not even their own bodies, as badly hurt as they were. There was a small bathroom in the room, so they would have water for awhile. There was no way to escape on their own and no way to call for help except for the call button, and no one had answered that from even before the blackout. 

“Need to move,” Rorschach grunted suddenly. Dan pulled back to let him shift, grimacing in sympathy at the hiss of pain every movement caused his friend. Rorschach straightened one of his legs out and Dan saw his jaw clench and his color fade. He didn’t so much relax as collapse and Dan felt his silent gasps as he tried to keep himself quiet. He tried to give Rorschach some extra room and had to grit his own teeth when the movement stabbed through his bitten shoulder. 

There was a sound from somewhere in the building, followed by an electric crackle. How long until help came? A public hospital couldn’t just go off radar for very long. Someone had to know that something was wrong. People would be calling in with emergencies, patients would be arriving, visitors would be coming, staff would be changing shifts. The place had been crawling with policemen the day before. Whatever the thing was, it couldn’t have killed everyone. Someone would have to come looking for them eventually. Right?

He remembered the attack in his house. He been glad to get inside, spooked by the sounds of something small and quick following him. He had locked his door and then gone to putter around for something to eat. He hadn’t been hungry, but had needed something to do. After a night of remembering the thrill of battle, to have nothing to do but sit quietly by himself ate at him. The only cure was to eat something else first. He had dropped into a chair with his snack and leaned back and there had been something waiting for him on the headrest. 

There had been no one to help him when the thing had grabbed him. He didn’t remember how long he had rolled on the floor with that thing. Once it had gotten its tail around his neck, everything had blurred. He had known very well that if he passed out, it would be over. How many days would he lay there until he was found? Who would think to come at all? No family to check on him, no friends to call if they hadn’t heard from him, no coworkers to wonder where he was. Except for one.

He refocused on Rorschach, huddled against his good shoulder. The face was still unfamiliar, a sullen mask nowhere near as smooth and beautiful as the one Dan was used to seeing. He could feel the rasp of beard stubble and the dry, cracked mouth. He wished his free arm had the mobility wrap around his old partner, just to hold him and feel how human he actually was. Not that Rorschach would appreciate that.

“I never thanked you,” Dan whispered and the wary, bloodshot eyes focused on him. “For coming. If you hadn’t shown up, I would’ve been dead a long time ago.” Rorschach looked at him intently for a moment, then shuddered and closed his eyes again. 

“Borrowed time,” he whispered back. “Maybe neither of us survive this.”

“Saved Hollis,” Dan insisted. “Twice.” Rorschach looked at him again, and there was a grief there that Dan wished he hadn’t seen. 

“Daniel,” Rorschach said, slowly and miserably. “Haven’t saved _anyone_.”


	12. Chapter 12

Time blurred. They took turns dozing while the other lay tense and trembling for any sound. 

There were sounds. Once they both heard gunshots. Eventually, Dan got thirsty enough to creep out of bed to the bathroom to get a little water. Bending over enough to drink from the faucet hurt, but the cool water on his face felt so good that he traded the pain in his back for a few minutes. He saw some of the sandpapery paper towels and took two to fold into a quick little cup to take some to Rorschach so he wouldn’t have to get up. 

He limped out into the room again and Rorschach was gone. The bed was empty. The floor was empty. The ceiling tiles over the bed were missing. The shock was profound enough to keep him standing there like an idiot, clutching his paper cup as the water dribbled on the floor. If he had been able to think clearly, he could’ve ducked back into the bathroom. It had a lock. He could’ve bought himself maybe another day hiding in there. As it was, he was too confounded to move. How long had let the water run over his head? Why hadn’t he heard anything? And then it was too late. 

The creature on the ceiling shut the bathroom door behind him so he couldn’t lunge back in, even if he had been able to make himself move fast enough. He turned toward the sound and saw his weak, distorted reflection in its carapace before it sprang at him. Its blackness blocked out his vision and when it hit him, deeper black washed over him. 

“Danny?” 

The voice was familiar and it was a relief. 

“Dan, can you hear me?”

Of course he could, but it was cold and his head hurt and he wanted to go back to sleep.

“Dan!” The voice barked now and his cheek suddenly stung. His eyes fluttered open. What was going on? 

“Wake. UP!” Another slap jolted him awake and he yelped. Hollis was hovering over him, so pale and filthy that it took a moment to recognize him. Dan tried to sit up and found himself half cocooned in some slimy mess. Recollection slammed back into his aching head. The thing in his house, the thing on the roof, the long run into the dark, the monsters, the explosions, the hospital…

“’Where-?” he flailed around while Hollis pulled away a layer of the cocooning slime. Dan saw the clusters of eggs on the floor around them and wheezed. They pulsed and shuddered, not very big, but the spacing around them indicated they might get bigger. 

"Shhh.” Hollis said. “Don’t wake the babies, Danny. Help me.”

“Rorschach?” He had to ask.

“Haven’t seen him,” Hollis helped him pull a leg free and started on the other. “Something sent all of them away or I wouldn’t have found you. I usually don’t make it this far when I get loose.”

“How… how long have you-?”

“I don’t know,” Hollis met his eyes. He looked old and scared which twisted Dan’s guts into ice. “Could be one day, could be a week. I don’t know. Can you stand?”

They limped as carefully as they could around the pods covering the floor. Dan saw other cocoons, but Hollis pulled him away. 

“Been there too long, the slime hardens and we can’t tear it.” They both froze when they heard a scream, not a human one, but one of the monsters. “I’ve never wanted to wipe a living thing out of existence before. These things, they change a man’s philosophy.”

“How do we get out?” Dan was still scanning the lumps for any sign of red hair. Where would they have taken Rorschach if he wasn’t with them? Was there some sort of larder? 

“Rorschach!” he called out in spite of himself. Hollis grimaced at the sound, but didn’t shush him. No answer came back and they kept going. 

“Up,” Hollis said. “I found service plumbing, which means we’re in a basement somewhere. Up is out.” He stopped short with a hiss. “Holy God, that’s not good.” 

Dan followed his gaze and saw the next cluster of egg-pods had been crushed. It was as if someone had stomped down on each one. 

“Has to be Rorschach,” he whispered, a sharp stab of hope in his chest. 

“They’re hunting him then,” Hollis said. “Whatever else they want, they can’t stand to have anything happen to those eggs. If they catch him, they’ll tear him apart.”

“It wasn’t him that screamed,” Dan said with more confidence than he felt. “C’mon. If it’s a basement, it has stairs somewhere.”

The walls and floors were lined with slime that had hardened into shapes that looked a lot like the creatures themselves. More than once Dan and Hollis jumped at the sight of what had looked like a fossil of one of the monsters in the bad light. Every egg they found now had been crushed. Hollis muttered about what would happen if they were found anywhere near a crushed egg, but then Dan spotted one of the monster’s prehensile jaws torn out and lying on the floor. 

It had been stabbed through with a broken piece of pencil, which made him want to cheer. Maybe the thing had had to bite its own tongue off to get away. The only blood there was yellow and eating through the floor and Dan was so elated that he didn’t notice the elevator until Hollis pointed. The controls were all covered with the slime, but the bottom of the door had been eaten through with acid. Rorschach had used the severed tongue to burn his way in.

“People asked me for years why I put up with him and I kept having to tell them that he is just awesome!” Dan was aware he sounded giddy and about thirteen years old, but his relief was too profound to even care. The sight of Hollis sobered him. Hollis had stopped and bent over, leaning against the wall and clutching his chest. He was taking deep careful breaths. “They, they didn’t get it out?” Hollis squinted at him over his shoulder.

“They didn’t have time,“ he said. “The things don’t hurt me. They just catch me and drag me back to my pen. I keep expecting them to hit on the idea of breaking my legs or something. I figure they wouldn’t bother being careful if they thought I had very long.”

“We’ve got to get you out,” Dan said. “Get some help.”

“I smothered one of the people in those cocoons,” Hollis said. “He asked me to. They had broken his back and he was adamant that he wouldn’t be eaten alive. So I did it for him.” He looked meaningfully at Dan who was already shaking his head. Dan was ready to argue, a whole horrified babble about how crazy that was and not giving up, but Hollis cut him off.

“I won’t ask that of you,” he said. “I trust you to do the right thing whatever happens.” And while Dan reeled from that, Hollis started pulling the acid scored door open. Something pinged and it slid all the way, making Hollis fall backwards, and there stood Rorschach. He looked worse than ever, but he was upright and ferocious and relief made him the most glorious sight possible as far as Dan was concerned. Rorschach had his tattered hospital smock tied around his waist like a kilt. His bandages were filthy and he had three new injuries splashing him with red. 

He looked like he had claimed the elevator by right of combat and once the shock wore off they saw that he had torn the handrail off inside and held it like a club. His other hand had a cable wrenched from some part of the elevator’s workings. The end of still sparked. He stared at them like he wasn’t sure who they were and then squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Hurry,” he growled. “Hurry!” And they piled in with him. He pushed the button and the doors slid shut with another ping. They started moving. Rorschach swayed and Dan reached for him. 

“Hoped you hadn’t been taken,” he said. His head tilted to lean on Dan’s chest and Dan saw the teeth marks in the back of his neck where Rorschach had been dragged.

“I turned around and you were gone,” Dan said, gingerly touching the bite to see how deep it was. Rorschach didn‘t flinch, just grunted. “What happened? Are you-?” 

“Stabbed it. Got loose. Hid in the elevator. Keep moving between floors. Eventually, they’ll get lucky and be at the right floor when the doors open, but couldn’t leave until I was sure.”

“Sure of what?” Hollis asked. Rorschach narrowed his eyes, flicking them from Hollis face to his chest. He didn’t answer, but Hollis already knew. 

“You found him,” he said. “Everyone accounted for. Time to go.”


	13. Chapter 13

Rorschach allowed himself the luxury of leaning against Dan as the elevator kept going up. It was slow and creaky and it was easy to imagine the inside of the elevator shaft clogged with the same slime and gunk as the basement had been. It didn’t make sense to go to the top floor like this. They might not be able to get down. They might end up trapped on the roof, with monsters closing in from all sides. But it was away from the basement.

He felt the touch on his neck again, gentleness at odds with the last few days. Another light touch on his shoulder blade and again on his stomach, neither lingering long enough to be intrusive. Rorschach had been keeping himself alert and battle-ready since he had been snatched and now had to remind himself that just because he had found Daniel again didn’t mean they were out of danger. He glanced again at Hollis. The old hero’s eyes were sharp, but not on him. He seemed to be keeping a careful eye on Daniel.

Had Dan been exposed to the scuttling horrors again? Rorschach had seen something like them when he crushed the eggs, much smaller and not completely formed, still soft enough to smear. He looked at Dan again too. There weren’t fresh bruises on his throat or new claw marks on his head.

“Hurt?” he asked, just to have said it.

“Got tackled and whacked on the head,” Dan said. “Out for a little while until Hollis found me.” Rorschach nodded and gave Hollis another wary glance. He hadn’t recognized them at first. He had nearly pushed the button to close the doors on them. If Dan hadn’t been there, he might have. He had held out hope for Hollis when he had believed that the hospital would care for them. Now, the old hero was doomed and the thing that would kill him would kill the both of them once it was out. Unless Daniel was carrying one too. What had happened while he had been unconscious?

A wild, sleep-deprived notion to find something sharp and cut them both open to see and be sure almost made him laugh. He wasn’t that insane yet. He hoped. 

The elevator pinged at the top floor and shook. The lights dimmed and the men inside had time to imagine starving to death trapped inside before there was a mechanical whine and the elevator was shaken hard and deliberately. They stayed quiet, eyes flicking from the ceiling to the door. An attack could come from anywhere. Maybe from the floor. The bottom of the elevator could be ripped away and they could fall and fall down the shaft lined with black, shiny, hissing bodies. 

Something stabbed through the elevator door sections, sending the humans inside reeling back. Rorschach’s first thought was that it was one of the monster’s tails, but there was nothing there until blue static sizzled over empty space and the blade of an entirely too familiar spear came into view. Oh no. He might’ve said it out loud. He lunged to push Dan and Hollis behind him, knowing he wouldn’t have a chance. He had held his own when he was whole and alert, but just barely. Now he was injured, exhausted, and probably a little delusional with paranoia.

The blade twisted, metal wailed, and the doors were sliced open. Green mist billowed in and for a moment, nothing was there. Then the static fizzed again and there was another hunter, at least seven, maybe eight feet tall. Two more stood behind it. The smell of acid burning turned out to be the dead monsters at their feet. One of the back ones said something and the front one made a quick gesture. Red lights skittered over Rorschach’s chest, then Dan’s before settling on Hollis.

Panic bubbled up. They had survived so much only to be cut down right here. Had to be a way out. He still clutched the broken railing. One of its supports still had a screw in the catch. If he was fast enough, strong enough to get that stabbed into the hunter’s neck, he might drop it in time to be cut in half by one of the others. Too bad the one they had met first wasn’t here to explain. It had only said two words to him that weren’t recording and he tried to remember what they were as the blade came up again. 

“Rorschach…” said Dan, part warning, part acknowledgment of each other’s position, as if this were the old days and these things weren’t any more dangerous than some street punks.

“Kainde,” Rorschach said and the all three masks swiveled toward him. He took a quick breath. “Amedha.” He wasn’t sure he remembered it right, or said it right. It might be some form of ritual insult that would get them skinned alive before they died. He wasn’t sure of anything, but it did buy them another minute.

“How the hell did you do that?” Dan whispered. The hunters were startled too. The two in the back hissed and chittered at each other while the lead one shook its head in what looked like disbelief. It tilted its head at Rorschach finally and then looked again at Hollis. It barked something to the others. They got back to what they were doing, and the leader retracted the spear. It touched a device on its arm and a human voice rolled out.

“Come out, come out wherever you are!” It was a man’s voice, angry and desperate. A past victim maybe, who had tried to fight back? It rose high in hysterical fury. “COME OUT!”

“Might as well,” Hollis grumbled, getting to his feet. What choice did they have, really? 

“Rorschach…” Dan’s voice suddenly played at them from just a moment before. Then Hollis’ “Might as well.” Dan swore under his breath, creeped out, and Rorschach shivered. He dropped the cable but kept his grip on the rail and stepped out.


	14. Chapter 14

They were taken out into the acid-scored hallway. Dead monsters were everywhere. The three hunters chittered back and forth at each other, ominous and mocking. One had a mask that rose to a point like a horn. The other had claw gouges on one side of his mask that continued down his shoulder as scars. Their leader’s mask was smooth except for an acid-burned zigzag across the brow. He was the largest, though they were all so big it hardly mattered. 

“Good thing they got here before us,” Hollis muttered as they passed more dead monsters. Rorschach wasn’t sure it was. He could feel himself fading. Every heartbeat wore at the last reserve of strength he had left. He needed to sleep and heal. His throat was painfully dry too. The red lights still skittered over them. Unknown weapons still clicked and gleamed on either side. He had to save just enough strength to do something, but he hadn’t worked out what yet. He felt sick and heavy and wasn‘t sure how much longer his legs would hold him, but didn’t want to be slaughtered without some kind of a fight. They were led up some stairs that the hunters barely fit through, out onto the roof. There was the aircraft Dan and Hollis recognized from the news, or at least one like it. There was an open hatch and the three humans were prodded toward it. 

“Get to fly in it after all, Danny,” Hollis said softly, taking his hand. 

“Great,” Dan sighed, but was glad for the contact. His other hand was on Rorschach’s shoulder, near the bite on his neck. They might still all be going to die. The inside of the ship was filled with steam. Whatever the hunters were, they liked their air hot and with a bite to it. All three humans felt the burn in their noses and in the backs of their throats as they went in and the humidity was instantly uncomfortable. The hatch closed behind them and the only light was the green glow from the ship. 

They passed stands that had weapons mounted. There were things he couldn’t begin to describe, made of metal or bone or something entirely foreign to him. Each was next to the skull of some being that was just as unknown. The weapons he could recognize were all displayed with human skulls. There was a katana, a pair of Glocks, a chipped-stone tomahawk, a dao, an ancient looking musket, an AK74 Carbine, a chakram, and what looked like a club lined with shark’s teeth. 

“Been busy,” Rorschach rasped. 

“Too bad they’ll have to mount our heads on your railing,” Dan said. “Unless they go back for your pencil.” He had meant it as a joke, but his tone wasn’t appreciated by the horned hunter who hissed something at him. The next skulls were obviously from the monsters, six of them framing a massive, crested skull that had to have come from one of the queens. 

“Trophies,” Hollis said. “That explains it. At the station, most of them had just been shot at their desks. It was the ones that fought back that had their heads taken.”

“Gangsters too,” Rorschach muttered. “Only the leader’s head was missing.”

“They only want the prize kills.”

“So why do they want us?”

No one had an answer for that. They were led down a ramp into a darker, cooler space. They were shown some sort of structure. It looked almost like a conveyor belt with a giant yoke and harness. Dan tilted his head, trying to comprehend why such advanced technological beings would have anything like that. He could see gouges in the metal like claw marks and some acid scoring around the part that looked like shackles. Had the hunters been capturing the monsters alive? Why would they kill all the others then? And why was the harness so big? The monster it held would have to be huge and- He stopped and looked up quickly. There were marks on the ceiling too that could’ve been made by an immense bony crest on the head of a monstrous creature.

“They brought the queen here,” he whispered. “Something happened and she got loose.”

“Why?” Rorschach hissed back, as outraged as he could manage. Dan was struggling for an answer just because he felt it was expected of him, but then the claw-scarred hunter grabbed Hollis and heaved him onto the platform. The horned one produced a foot long scalpel that whirred like a power drill. Dan screamed his name but was blocked by the leader’s spear.

“It’s all right, son,” Hollis said. “I’m good as done for either way. Even if they kill me, it’s not likely to be as bad as if that things eats its way out right? It’s all right.”

“It is NOT all right!” Dan screamed. He tried to push around the spear and was immediately backhanded off his feet. The spear swung in an arc that set the tip at his throat before he even stopped seeing stars, but just as quickly, a piece of handrail was held to the hunter’s. It was a ridiculous gesture. Even Dan thought so, and there was a disbelieving air to the way the hunter looked at Rorschach. In the blink of an eye it had wristblades to his throat. The spear hadn’t moved from Dan’s. Rorschach hadn’t moved either.

He looked into the thing’s mask, deadpan, dead-eyed. He didn’t flinch at the blades. Dan thought he might just be so far past shock and exhaustion that he didn’t care anymore. The hunter made a mocking laugh noise and then all three humans were seized and dragged to a smaller chamber. The blank masked one went in with them, and the other two sealed them in. There were score marks on the walls here too, but there was some kind of intercom system because they could hear clicks and hisses and the visible hunter answered. 

There was a bench that could also have been a chopping block. Hollis was tossed up on it. The hunter had his spear out and he shoved it into Rorschach’s hands. Rorschach took it and the hunter crossed his arms over his chest and waited. 

“If you don’t like the way they do things, you can do it yourself,” Hollis said. He chuckled and began to cough. 

“No,” Dan was fumbling at him, trying to comfort him and shield him with his own body at the same time. “That’s not going to happen. We‘ll fix it somehow.” He covered Hollis’ chest with his hands as if he could hold the thing in there.

“Dan…“ Hollis began. The hunter whirred at them. 

“What?” Dan asked it, bordering on hysterical. “Tired of waiting already?” A blast of light hit them from overhead. Then everything shook. The ship may have been taking off. It might have just been under siege from a wave of monsters. There was a sound or maybe just a vibration in the air. Rorschach felt it in his teeth and eardrums. Dan winced too. The hunter tilted his head, but didn’t seem alarmed. 

Hollis spasmed. Whatever was snuggled in his chest reacted as if to a dog whistle. It moved and Hollis grimaced. He started to say something, then something crunched under Dan’s hands and Hollis screamed. Blood spattered his chin. Dan screamed too, fumbling uselessly. Rorschach was frozen. He looked at the hunter who hadn’t moved. 

“Do something!” Dan screamed. Hollis thrashed. Something surged in his ribcage, forcing more blood up his throat and making him gurgle. 

“Can’t just cut him open,” Rorschach said protested. Hollis’ cry was choked off and his back arched. Finally, the hunter stepped up. He shoved Dan and Rorschach out of the way and gripped Hollis by the shoulder. Dan was babbling. 

“Help him. Just help him! I’ll do anything. Please! Do something! Just help him.” Rorschach let the spear fall to the floor to pull Dan away. The hunter bent over Hollis, holding him down with one hand and keeping the other free. 

‘Do something!“ Dan wailed again. Hollis shirt tented and turned red from the inside as the thing burst out of him. Dan screamed, anguish, horror, and rage echoing in the cell. It drowned out Hollis’ last cry and the thing tore through his shirt. It was almost translucent, unlike the black adults. Blood dyed its teeth and the points of its crest pink and it sprang to free itself from Hollis’ ribcage. The hunter seized it in mid-air. Rorschach hoped he would crush it, but even though it hissed and snarled and thrashed with its tail, the hunter held it carefully. 

They were replacing the dead queen, Rorschach realized. That’s all this was. The hunter roared to the intercom and the door was unsealed. He left, still carrying the infant queen, and the door shut again behind it. Hollis’ arm slid to hang off the edge of the table. Rorschach could only hope he was as dead as he looked. In his arms, Dan howled with what could’ve been grief or fury. The lights turned off and left them in the dark.


	15. Chapter 15

Rorschach was being grappled with, clutched. Fingers were digging into him and wounds were being pulled open and that was nothing new. The fact that he couldn’t mind it, that he was actually a little relieved to have some pain to compare to his partner’s anguish, was. A scream was muffled against his neck and he wanted to soothe, wanted to comfort, but he didn’t have the words and knew they would be useless if he did. 

“Hold me,” he whispered anyway. It wasn’t a request for his own comfort, more an order to reestablish control. “I’m here. You’re not alone. We’re both still alive.” The scream choked on a sob and he felt the mouth move against his neck without hearing any words. 

He was so tired. Had he fallen to the floor or had Dan’s thrashing knocked them both down? Whichever, the unearthly metal was warm on his back and got hotter up the wall where his head rested. If he leaned his head back, he could see part of Hollis’ profile in the weak light. His adam’s apple was visible under his chin, head thrown back by the force of the thing tearing out of him. Why hadn’t it come out of his throat? The eggs had gone down his throat. Wouldn’t it be easier passage back up instead of out through the ribcage? Seemed impractical, horrible just for the sake of being horrible. 

Dan’s breath was still hard and fast against his neck. Rorschach wrapped his arms around him a little tighter. It took more strength than he had to spare, and Dan was shaking violently, but they were able to cling to each other as rumbles and quivers when through the structure around them. His throat itched. How long since he had had a drink?

What would happen to them? Would they be killed outright? Their skulls taken? Left to starve in this cell? Would they be kept as food for the infant queen or as hosts for her offspring when she started laying eggs? Or taken into space? Maybe a trap door would open and they could be dropped back into the infested hospital? Rorschach was having trouble even caring and he fought that, trying to come up with a plan for escape or at least retribution, but he was so far past exhaustion that all he could focus on was not letting go. 

In his arms, Dan was still shaking, but it felt like he was getting a hold of himself. There was probably something Rorschach should say, something to acknowledge the loss. He didn’t know what it was. He had only said one word when his own mother died, and he knew that this was different. 

“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. His own voice echoed in his ears from a much farther distance than he knew his mouth was. He probably wouldn‘t be conscious much longer. He felt Dan‘s arms tighten around him, sending vague jolts of pain from various points. His vision was blurring, but he could feel breath on his face, then the touch of lips. That last puzzled him, he wasn’t even sure if the brush of stubble and softer, warmer brush of skin was what it felt like, but he found it didn’t matter. Black water was bubbling up over his brain and behind his eyes. He went under with another whispered ‘sorry’.

His own voice woke him up. 

“Hunh.” He jerked awake and found the lead hunter staring down at them. Dan was awake too. They had switched positions while Rorschach was asleep. Dan had rolled them over to hold him against his chest. His arms were crossed protectively over Rorschach. Hollis’ body was gone. They were reflected in the surface of the mask and none of them moved until the hunter dropped something that sloshed into his lap. It spoke then, in a wet, chitinous voice that neither of them understood, before it left and shut the door behind it. 

Rorschach picked up the object and his shaking hands made it slosh more. It was a waterskin, made from who knew what animal’s innards. Dan steadied his hands and pulled the stopper. 

“Smells like water,” he said. “Here. You first.” He helped hold it to Rorschach’s lips and let him drink until he started coughing. Then, he took his own drink. His breakdown was apparently over. 

“You’re worse off than I am,” Dan said. “Tell me when you think you can handle more.”

Rorschach turned to look at him and found a stone-faced, hard-eyed creature he hadn’t seen without a mask before. As groggy as he was, Rorschach thought he knew what had happened. The pieces of Dan had cracked and fallen away and left only Nite Owl beneath. Rorschach knew what that was like. His rush of grief for his friend was tainted by relief that he wasn’t alone anymore and he stomped both emotions out to try to sit up. Dan helped him. Maybe there was still some gentleness left in him after all, but when they were face to face, all he saw was steel.

“They all have those things on their arms,” Dan whispered quickly. “If we could figure out what that first one did to self-destruct his, we could set off theirs. Kill them, kill that fucking thing, and blow the ship up.” 

That was one of the crazier things Rorschach had ever heard, but in the state he was in, he gave it due consideration. He dimly remembered the concussive force of the first explosion, had a sort of slow-motion glimpse of the tunnel dust shock waving as their bodies bounced along the pavement, a half glimpse of Hollis rag-dolling ahead of him before his head smacked against something solid. He tried to gauge how big the ship was and compare it to the force he barely remembered. 

“Probably would only need one,” he said after a moment.


	16. Chapter 16

There were times when the ship felt like it might be moving. They heard sounds that could be engines. They could also hear the screams of the infant queen. Sometimes they sounded much bigger that she had been. She must've been growing fast. They must've been feeding her well. Dan and Rorschach had not been allowed out of the room for what could've been days or weeks. They had no idea if they were in space or still on Earth. They hadn't seen much of their captors either. They would be left alone long enough for the threat of despair to seep in, then one of the monsters would appear with a new waterskin for them. They weren't fed. There was something in the drink nutritious enough to keep them going without giving them much strength. Time passed in hot, stinking, terrified boredom. 

It had to have been days. They were both filthy from sweat, unshaven, and unwashed. They had tended their wounds with strips torn from their smocks, but those were stained and crusty now. There was a drain in one corner that they were using to pee down, and the liquid diet kept any other functions dormant. At first they had been alert for a chance to escape, whispering their plans. Time had passed though with no opportunity to run or fight. They stayed away from the slab Hollis had died on too, preferring to sit and sleep in the floor. Air was circulating, but it was hot and dank and full of vapors. Rorschach had thought they were being gassed at first, but aside from making the mugginess nigh unbearable, didn't seem to affect them. As humid and sticky as it was, they stayed huddled together.

Sometimes they would murmur to each other, meaningless conversations about things that had happened long ago or what could happen to them soon. Rorschach couldn't think of any reason they would be left alive except to be fed to the queen or used as hosts when she finally started laying eggs. Then the whole invasion would begin again. Dan was still determined to kill as many as possible before he starved to death or was gutted, but even that faded into a kind of miserable delirium as nothing happened and time dragged on. They could smell each other's body odor, breath, stinking bandages, Hollis dried blood, and the overall metallic ozone funk of the place. 

"How long do you think we've been here?" Dan asked suddenly. It had been awhile since either of them had wondered that. He must've forgotten the answer or just wanted to hear it again. They were sitting at angles, facing both ends of the room, Rorschach's head slumped against Dan's shoulder and Dan's arms around him. 

"I don't know," Rorschach said. They sat in silence until Dan shuddered. 

"God," he whispered. "Are we still here? Am I even awake? I can't tell-" Rorschach bit him on the collarbone without warning. Dan yelped and then clutched him close. 

"Again," he begged and Rorschach did, higher on his neck. "We're going to die." He said it like he had just realized it. Rorschach reached up without knowing what he was going to do until he cradled Dan's face in his hands. His fingers were spaced just right to fit the scars the facehugger had left. 

"Still here," he said. "Still alive." Dan cupped his hands over Rorschach's. His eyes flickered, maybe noticing the facehugger resemblance too. Desperation became defiance, and then Dan kissed him. It wasn't well-aimed or gentle. It pinched both their lips between his teeth and hurt. They separated for a breath that was all silence and eye contact, then collided again with tongues and abandon. They were going to die, but they weren't dead yet.

Dan was already hard under the smock and Rorschach flinched against his mouth when he felt it. Dan pulled them together, parting Rorschach's thighs and lifting his makeshift kilt. The sight of them pressed together was too much like _them_ , like the pale queen jutting out out of Hollis. He wanted to gag and crush the obscene things in his fist, but Dan's hand was already there. He didn't squeeze or crush, just held them together and stroked. 

His tongue buried in and lust snapped a few of the fraying threads holding Rorschach in place. They were together. Being obscene together, but together. He sucked inward on Dan's tongue. It was a relief to have something tangible inside. Would it have been a relief after the struggle when the facehugger finally forced itself in? He shuddered and choked, remembering Dan on the floor, his body heaving up and in, hard and gasping. Like now, like this. 

Dan let him pull out of the kiss but hooked hands under his legs to lift and position him. Rorschach grahed at the pain in his thighs, but moved for him. The cell was so damp, they were both soaked from the beginning. It was probably enough, but Dan reached around to get his fingers in. Rorschach expected a new, violated pain but Dan was careful. He felt stretched and miserable and yearning until a hand moved to his hip. Dan pulled him down and inched inside. 

There was pain then, but it was a warm, solid pain that moved, soothing itself with sensation. They weren't kissing anymore. They both tasted terrible, but they weren't dead. Nothing dead could feel this way. They were alive and every fierce grind proved it. It hurt, but sweetly, lit by a spark of something that should've been beautiful under all the grim desperation. They ground together, eyes locked. They were not alone, they were not dead, not yet. 

Dan's jaw dropped, and his eyes bugged, then clenched shut. When they flew wide again, he moaned like he had been gutted, then shook like he was in his death throes. Rorschach screamed with him, and let him heave, but then there were hands lifting him up. Dan raised him up and off and Rorschach resisted, not wanting to be without him so soon. Leverage was against him though and he felt Dan slip free. He groaned, but he was still being lifted. 

Dan bent forward, raising Rorschach up slowly like a preying mantis. Did the things eat their mates? Dan seemed glazed, but intent. Rorschach did scream when Dan's mouth opened and he felt it engulf him. He wanted to cry not that! not one of them! but a scrape of teeth and a roll of tongue and all his senses failed him. He couldn't thrash, any movement that wasn't Dan's hurt, but he could arch as his whole body went liquid and let it all spill out his throat in a wail. 

When his head cleared, he was back in Dan's lap. They were so disgusting that the new mess didn't matter. 

"We're going to get out of this," Dan said, low and fierce. Rorschach thought of Hollis and added 'one way or another ', but didn't say so out loud. He nodded and let his head rest against Dan's chest. Far away, past all the metal, he could hear something scratching, but fingers were gently rubbing around the wound on the back of his neck. He was too grateful that they were still willing to touch each other to even notice that when the queen screeched in the distance, the scratching stopped.


	17. Chapter 17

They had slept for a long time when the drain in the corner jiggled. Rorschach looked at it blearily until it scraped and lifted. The sudden tension in his body woke Dan and they both held their breath as the drain worked itself up out of the floor. The pipe had barely been big enough for one of their legs and bent too sharply to maneuver so they hadn't considered it as an escape possibility. Now something was coming in. 

If it was a facehugger, all they had to fight with was the piece of railing. If it was more than one, they might be doomed. The drain was pushed aside and a thing crawled out. It had flattened itself horribly to fit through the pipe and gave itself a shake when it was free, inflating back into a larger shape. It was one of the monsters, but different. The main similarity was the long, spiny tail and the lack of eyes. It was smaller, more the size of a dog than a human, and like a dog it had more of a muzzle and more canine teeth in the outer jaws. 

Neither Rorschach or Dan had moved, but it studied them carefully. It hissed and then sprang up on the table, sniffing at the blood before licking it. The taste got a warbling whine out of it. Then, another distant squeal from the queen brought it to attention. It leaped up to the ceiling and grappled with the duct work there. When the pipe didn't budge, it snarled and its internal jaws shot out with sledgehammer force. The sound made both humans jump. Again and again, it attacked until acid bled from it's mouth, sizzling into the dents it was making and eating them wide enough to get its claws into. 

When the hole was big enough, it disappeared into the duct and they waited to be sure it was gone before Dan whispered. 

"You could fit through that," he said, staring at the hole. 

"Not leaving you," Rorschach hissed back. They both got to their feet and approached carefully. "If there's one, there's more."

"Would you rather meet them in a narrow tunnel or wait here to be overrun?" Dan asked. Rorschach glowered at the hole and started climbing. 

"It widens," he said after peeking in. "You can fit too. Have to squeeze around the acid. Better to be cut on the metal than touch that." Dan agreed and Rorschach carefully began to ease in, one limb at a time. It was hard, and he had to contort into spider-like positions to keep from touching the edges or the trail the thing had dribbled as it went. Dan had a worse time of it, but with Rorschach helping, only lost a little skin cramming into the duct. 

They could feel air moving around them, so it was probably a ventilation system. Hopefully that meant they could follow the air current to the outside. Unfortunately, that also meant they would have to follow the acid trail. All too aware of how easily they could be mauled if another thing came upon them, they started creeping along. 

Crawling was hard on Rorschach thighs so he was scooting grimly on his knees when they came on a grate that had been smashed. Below was the queen, now seven feet tall, shackled in the yoke and equipment they had seen when they were first brought on board. She was only half the size of the earlier queen, but there was already some sort of egg sac forming under her. It was bound and cinched tight too. Maybe the hunters didn't want her laying any eggs until they were ready.

The dog-sized one was there. The queen strained to reach it. They hissed and crooned to each other and the smaller one licked her chin, wagging its tail like an excited puppy. She purred, a deep, vibrating sound and it sprang to obey, climbing over her head to the yoke pinning her down. Dan and Rorschach watched it tear into its own belly, spilling its guts. The acid started burning through the bindings and the queen redoubled her struggles. 

Once the yoke was eaten through, she was able to tear free. She lowered her massive head to touch the dying small one before lunging upright and howling her rage. Then she bolted down the nearest corridor.

"She wants out," Rorschach whispered. "We'll follow her. She'll find a way."

"She can't be allowed to escape," Dan said. "Even if we have to die here, we can't let her loose in the city again!"

"Won't be just us after her," Rorschach reminded him, squirming to drop down into the chamber. "Have to dodge them too."

They couldn't keep up with the queen. They didn't see the horned hunter attack her, but they heard the scream she made. By the time they caught up, she had torn him apart. His spear was still caught between her shoulder and ribs. It did nothing for her state of mind and she was shrieking like a demon when she attacked a large panel in the wall. That must be the way out. 

"Get out first," Rorschach said. "Then worry about killing her." Dan nodded, but then there were bright blasts of energy from nowhere. They were aimed at the queen's legs. The hunters still didn't want her dead for whatever twisted reason. A thrash of her tail and they saw the static as she impaled one of the invisible hunters with it. His body became visible, just as she swung him to bludgeon into the third.

Rorschach was rummaging with the dismembered hunter's pieces. He tossed the self destruct plate to Dan and wrestled the shoulder cannon free. 

"Start pushing buttons," he said and started blasting at the same wall the queen had been trying to break down. Dan didn't even know where to start. He got lights to come on, but had no way of knowing what they indicated. None of them seemed to be counting down and the cannon ran out of ammo. Across the room, the hunter with the lightning mark on his mask was still holding his own, but barely. The queen had slashed him across the chest and he was keeping her back with another spear. 

Rorschach ran over to the impaled one and tried to pull off its cannon too. It was still moving and batted him away with a weak snarl. He snarled back and latched on, wrenching the weapon away. The lightning-marked one bellowed something and the dying one gurgled. It gave up on Rorschach and started tapping at its own armpiece. The lights came on and began counting down. 

"Daniel!" Rorschach called. "Save it for later! Hurry!" He started firing at the corner of the door again and Dan ran to join him. They both had to dodge a wild swing of the queen's tail, but at least she was too intent on killing the last hunter to pay them any attention yet. A hole was finally blasted. It was the size of a manhole cover, but jagged and still glowing hot from whatever plasma the cannons used. 

Dan and Rorschach hurried through, ignoring the burns and punctures in their hurry to get away from the self-destruct. Cut and blistered, they staggered out into a wet, dark place. It could've been still in the subway systems of New York or on another planet. They didn't have to time to look around. They just limped as quickly as they could. Rorschach led them down the first turn they came to and then again into one they had to crawl in, hoping to spare them as much of the blast as possible. How many seconds had it been? How many left?

It felt like a nightmare, forcing their battered bodies to hurry down the dark tunnel and feeling like they were barely moving in slow motion, fighting every heartbeat to get far enough away to survive the explosion. 

"Storm drain," gasped Rorschach. 

"You sure?" Dan asked. He pointed to stenciled letters painted on the wall. The only one Dan could make out was NYC and relief made his legs wobble. 

"Hidden in them before," Rorschach grimaced. "Empty in the harbor. Hurry!" 

They almost made it. Dan saw the circle of weak light reflecting off the water down the tunnel ahead of them and tried to speed up. Almost there. Real air. Real light. Almost there. Then the blast rattled them like pennies in a jar. Dan tasted blood when his chin bounced off the floor and his vision shattered into sparks when his skull scraped across the top. His last conscious thought was that he made it to the water, but maybe it was blood, and that was all for a long time.


	18. Chapter 18

Awareness tricked in slowly, or maybe that was the little stream his head was laying in. Stream of what? He couldn't care. Something had woken him, but it wasn't obvious right away. He wasn't being pulled anywhere, just pulled on. He got his eyes open and Rorschach was there, tugging uselessly at his arm. It wasn't budging him. 

Rorschach looked like he was only half-conscious and likely past all his strength. He was stubbornly still trying to pull Dan out of the drain. Dan's shoulder was jammed against a place where the pipe had buckled and was holding him in place. He had to concentrate to remember how to move enough to shift his shoulder down around the bump. It felt like rocket science and his back lit into agony as soon as he moved, but he managed. 

Another tug still didn't move him. Rorschach just didn't have anything left. Dan had to dig an elbow against the wall to scoot himself forward. The pain filled up the whole world. He was on fire from scalp to tailbone and his mouth felt swollen shut. He inched forward until he was level with Rorschach. They had almost made it. They were just a few feet from the spillway. Just beyond was the the harbor. They were sprawled in an inch or so of water, but it wasn't raining outside, so they were probably safe for now. 

Rorschach kept pulling, even though they were now face to face. His eyes were blank and his pupils were blown wide. He was too filthy and Dan's vision wasn't steady enough to tell if that was mud caking his head or blood. Either way, he looked concussed. Dan didn't even want to know what his head looked like. It felt like it was being stung by hornets. 

He made himself keep moving until he could get his arms around Rorschach and he lowered them both back down to the wet floor. Rorschach fumbled at him and Dan forced an arm under his head to pillow it. He tried to say that they were going to be ok, but his jaw wasn't working. He could barely make little mumbles and every time he tried, pain made his vision fizzle. There was no comfortable way to put his head down so he set it against Rorschach's. 

When he opened his eyes again, it was cold and the water was deeper. He could hear rain hitting the water a few feet away and picked himself up. He was still racked with pain, but he was able to push it aside enough to move. He checked Rorschach's pulse and found it fluttering like a bird's. Dan's mouth was still too swollen to kiss him, so he dragged himself past and finally reached the end of the tunnel. It wasn't raining hard, and it was dark out, but the light was still better enough for him to take stock of himself. 

He was dirty, and naked except for the hospital smock. His feet were burned and cut and filthy. How were they going to get anywhere? Normally, he could call Hollis, but no one would be home and a new rush of grief kept him bowed under the drizzle until a cough from Rorschach made him look back again. He had to find out where they were. He pulled himself out of the drain and tried to go up the back over it. Cold rain over his bare back and ass was actually a relief, but he couldn't help but hope no one would be there to see. Even if they did need help. 

No one was in sight. They were near the docks. The hunters had chosen a good spot to avoid detection. He squinted through the rain until he could make out the street name and crawled back to the tunnel. Rorschach was looking for him, confused and a little frantic. Dan had to grit his teeth and then pry them apart to get a word out. 

"M'Here," he managed. "Know where we are." Rorschach clambered over to him, ignoring his own pain and the sounds he was making to force his body to the mouth of the pipe. His smock was in worse shape than Dan's, already tied around his waist and then shredded for bandages. They were going to scare the hell out of anyone who saw them. 

Rorschach made it to Dan and clung to him. Dan told him where they were and he thought about it until the water had risen another inch. 

"Know a place," he said. "Hard to get there, but safe." 

"FInd a phone," Dan said. "911. Hospital."

"No!" Rorschach choked. "Last one…"

"Have to."

"Nrgh."

"Open wounds in a sewer. Internal damage. Have to. Have to." Dan kept that as a mantra as he crawled back up the hill. Rorschach followed like a crippled dog, unable to keep from whining at the pain, but determined to keep Dan in sight. The rain picked up and a few blocks away, a car hissed by. Staying upright was taking the majority of Dan's strength, but he waited until Rorschach caught up and they hobbled across the street to a payphone. 

"Mistake," Rorschach moaned as he dialed 911. Dan slurred something about being hit by a car and left the phone off the hook so it could be traced. He and Rorschach lay underneath the phone until flashing lights drew near.


	19. Chapter 19

When Rorschach woke up, everything was clean and white. For the first few seconds, he could've imagined that it was some straight-angled version of heaven if it wasn't for the smell. Only one thing smelled that clean and chemical, and it was a hospital. His head was muzzy, so he had been drugged. He thrashed around until a nurse came to check on him. 

She explained the situation, that a hit and run driver had knocked him down an embankment, where he had lain for what they assumed was at least a day. He had forty stitches in his head, a concussion, bruised ribs that they wanted to X-ray again just to be sure they weren't broken, and they had him on antibiotics for the infections he had gotten in the cuts of his feet and hands and the one on the back of his neck. She also wanted to know what had happened to his thighs, and how he had gotten the stab wound in his shoulder. Those wounds were older.

"Wasn't alone," he said. "My… Dan. Was with me."

She tried to assure him that there had been someone else, that they were here too, that they were out of danger, but Rorschach was prepared to drag himself down the hall to look for his partner and make sure. When the nurse realized it, she said she would take him on a wheelchair ride if he would explain the holes burned through his legs. 

"Industrial accident," he said after taking entirely too long to think of something. "Caustic splashed. Shrapnel in shoulder." She looked at him so long, he was sure she knew he was lying, but she left and came back with a wheel chair. It was torture to get out of the bed and into it. His feet were bandaged and didn't want to hold him up. He hated the thought of being pushed anywhere in a chair, but was dizzy and sore enough to realize that he didn't have enough of his own power to make it on. 

It was also very possible that he really did have some broken ribs. The nurse thought so too. She grumbled about taking him straight to X-ray, grabbed the iv stand he hadn't even noticed until then, and started wheeling him down the hall. She took him to Dan's room. He tried to count how many doors down it was, but lost track of where his own room was too quickly. 

Dan was asleep. The back of his head had been stapled shut, the nurse told him. His jaw had been broken in his chin, and he had a zygomaticomaxillary complex fracture (she traced a line on her own cheek to show him), but they were pretty sure they could save the eye. He had stitches in his lip, a dislocated shoulder, and a badly wrenched back. The theory was that he had been hit first and dragged underneath the car before it had hit Rorschach. He had the same infected cuts on his hands and feet as Rorschach did (she didn't want to think what they had fallen into for that to set in so fast). They were keeping him knocked out for the time being, letting him heal. 

He looked terrible and Rorschach couldn't help but reach for him and call to him. Dan didn't respond at all, and Rorschach felt frantic fear start to set in. To have survived all that and die in the hospital? It wasn't fair, wasn't right, as childish as those protest were. The nurse assured him that Dan was battered, yes, but not likely to die from any of it. 

"And neither are you," she said. "But I want another look at those ribs." Rorschach raised such a fuss at having to leave Dan that she promised to bring him back by after the X-ray if he would just stop thrashing. She ended up throwing in the offer of pudding and then threatening to sedate him if he didn't act his age. Rorschach couldn't care. He tolerated the handling and the X-ray and what do you know, there was the fracture on ribs 7 through 10 and no wonder it hurt so bad. He had to wait hours to have them wrapped and then a different nurse had to harassed into taking him back to Dan. 

He sat with Dan until the new meds knocked him out and woke up feeling even worse in his own room. He tried to be vigilant for any sign of the monsters, for any sign of suspicion about what had really happened to him, but his distress was interpreted as pain and he was kept thick in pudding and painkillers for the next few days. By the time the worst of his concussion had faded and the infection had dried up, Dan was awake.


	20. Chapter 20

They told Rorschach he could be discharged, but he had nowhere to go. Dan had to make arrangements for weeks of chiropractic follow-up, but he was allowed to go too once he was up and moving. They had been given clothes to wear, and called a cab. They went to Dan's house first, to get money to pay the cab with. Dan wanted to go back to where they were hit to look for something. Rorschach was mystified, but went along too. 

"The armpiece," Dan explained in the backseat. "Dropped it in the pipe somewhere. Should get that back, if we can."

It was pouring rain when they got there and a steady stream was coming out of the drain. There was no way Dan could make it down the embankment with his back, Rorschach insisted, so he went down to check. It wasn't easy on his ribs either, but he didn't have to look for long to see a red light underwater in the pipe. It was a short painful crawl to reach it. The thing was surprisingly heavy, which was the only reason it hadn't been washed away. 

He was soaked again, and already dreading another round of antiseptics on his cuts, but he carried it back to Dan, who piled him back in the warm cab. They went home again and Rorschach had to change and rub the salve on whatever wound had been touched by the drainage. It made him grumble, but Dan sat and watched him and the silent stare should've been unnerving. It wasn't. 

"Feels like we should celebrate," Dan said eventually.

"Too early for that," Rorschach said. Dan reached to help with the salve and Rorschach sat back to let him do it. Dan didn't stop at his limbs, running hands up over his body to his face. 

"If I didn't look like the face of Frankenstein with all these stitches," Dan said, stroking a bandaged thumb over the corner of Rorschach's mouth. The smell of band-aid and the salve was familiar and soothing by then. The hitch of his breath and the fierce light that flared in his bruised eyes was familiar. 

"Different now," Rorschach said, letting his jaw drop to encourage the thumb over his bottom lip. 

"Is it?" Dan's tone hadn't changed. His voice was still soft and conversational, but there was intensity underneath.

"No…" Rorschach had to admit. "Isn't much." The thumb swept to his upper lip and it tickled enough that he couldn't help but lick it. The touch of his tongue froze Dan for a heartbeat and then he had pulled back like he hadn't been petting his partner. It was Rorschach's turn to sit frozen until Dan held the thumb to his own lips and that sight sent his stomach into an aching spiral. Dan kept it there, looking thoughtfully at nothing. Rorschach wanted him to talk, wanted to have something to say, wanted an excuse to touch him back. He couldn't think of anything. No excuses then. 

He inched over to sit directly beside Dan and took his hand. Dan looked at him, but closed his eyes when Rorschach pulled the thumb back to his mouth and kissed it. It was damp from both their mouths, and another taste of it made Dan shiver.

"What are we going to do?" Dan asked. The question could've meant anything, the monsters, their injuries, the mysterious device, Hollis' disappearance, more sex, or dinner. Rorschach answered the same way. 

My ribs are broken," he said. "Your back is torn. Have to go easy, whatever we decide."


	21. Chapter 21

They ordered food to be delivered, eating slowly at first and then inhaling it. When it was all gone, they made eye contact over the empty plates and if there had been any food left, the tension implied that they might fight over it. If Dan did kiss him quickly, Rorschach thought, it would leave the stiff brush of sutures and the taste of sesame chicken sauce. He changed the subject.

They checked the calendar then to see just how long they had been gone. They had lost nearly a month, but how much had been in the ship and how much in the hospital was harder to pin down. They watched the news, but the incident at the other hospital was already old news. It was still being called a terrorist attack and some company neither of them had ever heard of was investigating. 

"Ammitcorp," said Dan, reading the name of the news graphic. "Wasn't Ammit the creature that ate your soul if it weighed more than a feather?" Rorschach made a confused noise. "Mythological monster. Part crocodile, part lion."

"Tail like a scorpion?" Rorschach asked, touching the shoulder that had been stabbed. Dan gasped. 

"What if those things were around in ancient Egypt?" he asked. "And the hunters with those masks? They would look just like animal-headed gods if they showed up shooting fire and lightning."

"Hopefully be a few thousand years before we get another look."

"Amen to that."

They watched the news until it was over and then got up to secure the house. They both searched, making sure every door and window was sturdy and latched from roof access to the Nest. Every dark corner that might hide a facehugger or a clutch of pulsating eggs was checked twice before they locked themselves in. It was time for a round of medication and then to bed, but they ended up facing each other in the living room.

Rorschach hadn't even considered going home until then. He had helped lock up after all. The thought of walking to his tenement in this shape, jumping at shadows and every tiny sound wasn't a good one. Dan would probably call him a cab, but it would still mean staying up all night, watching every corner, probably with a blanket crammed over his mouth just in case. He could ask to stay, and still end up with his back to the guest room wall, ears straining for any noise that wasn't normal. Dan was still looking at him, and he needed to have something to say when the question came.

"The worst part of the hospital was that you were out of reach," Dan said, surprising him. "I barely remember what it feels like not to sleep with you beside me anymore." Another long silence, then a sigh. "Will you stay with me?"

He could say no, claim that some space was what they both needed after being trapped together so long. He could say yes, just for tonight, add conditions to it. He could make some excuse about it being easier to keep watch if they were in the same room. He could shudder with relief and wrap arms around Dan and thank him. All Rorschach actually did was nod. 

It was Dan that slumped gratefully and they both shuffled in to take their pills. It was hard to go up the stairs and worse to lower themselves down on the bed. Dan hissed and groaned until he lay flat. Rorschach stayed quiet, but his color was gone and his jaw was tight by the time he lowered himself down too. They settled in and were quiet for a few minutes.

"Didn't brace the door," Rorschach realized. Dan moaned, and Rorschach struggled upright one more time to hobble over and wedge a chair under the door knob. 

"Thank you," Dan said as he limped back. Rorschach suffered through another tucking in and they lay quietly again, waiting for the pills to drag them under.

"Did you like it?" Dan asked suddenly. "What we did. Before." Rorschach did shudder then and he kept his breathing steady so it wouldn't hurt his ribs. Dan waited for an answer, but it was too dark to see his expression.

"Needed it," Rorschach finally said. "Associations unpleasant, but you made it-" He struggled with the next word, wondering if this was hard because it was embarrassing or if the drug had fogged his head more than his pain. "Didn't want you to stop. Wanted more. Until. You. Your mouth."

"Did you like it?" Dan asked again.

"Scared me." Rorschach's voice was flat. Another long silence, then: "Yes."


	22. Chapter 22

They healed for a few days, eating and resting and letting all the pieces knit. Once he could move without painful effort, Dan wanted to go to Hollis' house. Just to check on it, see if one of the neighbors had been feeding Phantom, maybe to give the grief something to cling to that wasn't a blood-soaked slab, maybe just to drown the memory of the way his mentor died with the more mournful, but gentler memory of a house left empty, old cars that would never be fixed, and an old dog waiting for a master that wouldn't come home. What would happen to Hollis? Would his body eventually be found somewhere under the city?

Unlikely, Rorschach thought. Even if the hunters hadn't destroyed or processed the body, it would've been obliterated in the crash. There would be funeral, no grave. He would be reported missing eventually, and after that, eventually declared dead. Next of kin would be contacted. The house and garage and lot would be sold. There would be nothing left. So maybe it was right for Dan to go now and take what comfort he could from it before all that happened. 

They went together, safety in numbers. The junkyard had been the first place the facehuggers had been. It was hard not to imagine the worst. If a hugger had followed Dan home from here, the whole neighborhood could be overrun. But there were children playing in the empty lot. There was a vendor set up two blocks down. There were people around. 

They went up the stairs to the door, which was a few inches ajar. Had they remembered to lock it when they had gone here looking for Hollis? Rorschach couldn't remember. Had they left it open or had someone else been here? Dan braced himself and opened it. 

The smell rolled out immediately. Phantom lay there, twisted in a painful angle across the floor. Rugs in disarray around him told of an agonizing, thrashing death. The thing they both couldn't stop staring at was the gaping hole in the poor dog's ribcage. The ribs were smashed outward and inside was a hollow just big enough for a monster to curl.

"He didn't want me to touch him that first night, remember?" Dan finally said. "He was already hurting."

"Should go," Rorschach said, eyes flitting around the room.

"Probably got him the same time they got Hollis." Dan went on. "Probably hatched about the same time…"

"Daniel. Now." 

"The queen came out of Hollis," Dan moaned, swaying a little. "If the dog-like one we saw came out of Phantom…"

"Could be more. Could be anywhere." Rorschach grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the door. 

"Do you think it remembered him?" Dan's voice was distant now, as if he might faint. Rorschach didn't even pretend that he would be able to move Dan if he did. "Do you think some part of it knew that the queen had been part of Hollis and it wanted to go to its old master?"

"No." Rorschach hauled him resolutely toward the door. "Giving them too much credit." Dan didn't resist anymore and let himself be towed out. They went to a neighbor's house where Rorschach asked to use a phone. He called the police, told them that they hadn't seen their neighbor in awhile and his dog was dead inside the house. They were concerned, he said, and could someone come by? He hung up without waiting for an answer and hustled Dan back out onto the street without thanking the phone's owner. 

They hurried home and Rorschach made another sweep of the house, attic to Nest to be sure nothing had gotten in while they were gone. Dan didn't help. He just sat on the couch until Rorschach was satisfied that they were safe for the moment and joined him. 

"I'd throw up if I didn't know how bad it would hurt my back," Dan said. He pulled his glasses off and held them. His back wouldn't let him hunch over, but the rest of his posture wanted to. Rorschach sat down beside him. 

"Don't," he said. Dan's grip must've tightened because his glasses creaked and Rorschach took them away. Dan's hand closed around his.

"Could've been me. That same night," he said. "If you hadn't come."

"If I had been too late," Rorschach added. "And found you in the floor like the dog." They looked at each other, too stripped to the bone to care about anything else. Rorschach kissed him first, but Dan held him so he couldn't pull away.

"This isn't over," he said. Rorschach didn't argue.

"Need to set up some kind of security," Dan said. "Something motion sensitive for the walls and ceilings." His hands were combing through Rorschach's hair, getting a low sound that could also pass for an agreement. 

"Find someway to neutralize that acid," he added. Their lips touched, but Dan kept talking. "Reverse engineer that armpiece. Figure out how it works without detonating it." Rorschach made a questioning sound at that and Dan did kiss him this time. "Wouldn't you like to be invisible?"

"YES," Rorschach said. Dan's fingers cupped his face, so he closed his eyes to let them stroke over it. Thumbs lingered on his lips.

"Need something to reinforce masks with," Dan went on. "Over our mouths. Just in case." Rorschach didn't miss the plural. His eyes flew open and he caught Dan's wrists. 

"You're coming out of retirement." It wasn't a question. "To hunt them."

"Yes," Dan said. The resolve behind it made Rorschach's stomach flutter. They stared each other down for a long moment. "Have to," Dan said. His hands twisted in Rorschach's grip to lock their fingers.

"To make them pay," Rorschach said. "Keep home safe." His voice wasn't steady. Dan's scarred lip twitched in almost a smile.

"It'll take time," he said. He gathered Rorschach up and pulled him into his lap. "We have to heal up, re-equip." Rorschach straddled his legs and Dan leaned back into the couch. "Things to take apart and build back."

"Good," Rorschach grated. He scooted forward to press together, resting his elbows on Dan's shoulders. Dan's groan was lost in the next kiss and he still managed to keep his hands gentle over the bindings around Rorschach's ribs. Rorschach was being easy too, letting Dan's back ease down to the cushions. 

"This… this has to hurt your legs," Dan said, running hands over Rorschach's thighs as they both squirmed to loosen the clothing between them. 

"Nothing to hurt now," Rorschach gasped, fumbling with Dan's belt. "Nerve endings all cauterized." Dan winced in sympathy, then hissed when hands slid under his waistband. They were still cold from the walk back but Dan pressed into them anyway. Rorschach tugged the clothes out of the way but was gentler with the flesh underneath. 

"Wasn't sure you would want this again," Dan whispered, like bringing it up might remind Rorschach that he didn't. 

"Nothing's changed about that," Rorschach said. He grimaced when his own pants were eased down, but relaxed again when Dan's palm slid between them. "Still need you," he added, dropping to a whisper too. "Want it if it's you."

Dan's sigh was relieved and his hands were hungry. Rorschach lapped at his fingers when they went back to his mouth and rose up on his knees to give Dan easy access. Dan was being much more careful than before, as if to make up for the frenzy of their first time. Gentle as it was, it still tied Rorschach into knots. Fingers stroked and curled and scissored until he was vibrating and he was dimly aware that he was saying something without any idea what or how to stop it. 

For a long dizzy moment, he didn't even know how to hold all the pieces of himself together. Then Dan sank into him and the friction of every inch anchored every molecule. He clamped tight to feel it, to make it last, and this time it was Dan's cry that rang out. They were twisting to get closer and deeper, and only pulled apart to make slamming back together that much sweeter. Rorschach couldn't even care about his ribs when it felt like his whole chest would burst outwards anyway. 

This would be the moment they were attacked, he thought suddenly. Vulnerable and exposed like this. Another tooth-baring slide lit fire all the way up his spine. His head lolled back and he felt his chest strain against the wraps as his back arched. This was where the barbed tail tip would impale him, burst through the ribs like the baby queen had. He whimpered, grinding back hard. 

And Dan underneath him, sore back bowed upwards to meet him, was easy prey too. His neck was thrown in another arc, exposing the jugular. His eyes were closed and his mouth was wide in a blissful gape. If a facehugger were to drop on him now, it would meet no resistance. Dan might even moan and try to suck the vile thing deeper before he understood what had him.

Rorschach sank down to clamp his mouth protectively over Dan's. It changed the angle, and Dan scrabbled to roll with it, to find leverage somehow. They strained together, bodies and tongues, until a final clench snapped something and left Rorschach gasping into Dan's mouth as it shook him. Dan clung to him through his own and they lay together in a quivering pile until enough time had passed that they could tell which body parts belonged to which again. 

"You always were amazing," Dan said. Rorschach wasn't sure of the context but decided to be flattered. 

"Glad it was you," he said. He still sounded too shaken to growl. "Could've died with you without too many qualms. If you had been anyone else, I might have. But no. Glad it's you to fight those things with too. Everything was better when you were my partner."

Dan purred and squirmed to roll to his side, so they could be face to face. 

"We'll have to be careful," he said, fingers in Rorschach's hair again. "Set up a secure base first. Motion sensors. Something acid and invisibility proof."

"Hospital basement was full of eggs and hosts," Rorschach said. "Unlikely I got them all."

"We'll have to investigate that Ammitcorp," Dan said. "See if they know what they're dealing with and what they plan to do with it."

"Keep eye out for new urban legends," Rorschach said. "Of things that go down your throat in your sleep or live in the walls. Word will be on the street first. No one will believe it until it becomes wide-spread. Too late then."

"You're right." Dan said and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Need to work on my goggles too, once I know how the invisibility works. Find a spectrum I can see it in."

"May not have time for all of this," Rorschach said. "Could already be out there."

"Security first," Dan said. "Have to have a place that's safe to go to. Like a bomb shelter. Hell, if those things do spread, they may have to drop the bomb." They were both quiet, imagining it. 

"Build it," Rorschach said finally. "Secure it. I'll bring back supplies and information."

"Not until you're healed."

"Healed enough for this," Rorschach reminded him, nudging his hips. "Healed enough for that."

"Not until we've re-rigged your suit then." Dan wasn't going to argue. "Some kind of shield for the mouth and the throat, so they can't force in or choke you out." He looked Rorschach in the eye. "It isn't fun. And I don't want either of us alone if it can be avoided."

Rorschach's version of an annoyed sigh rattled out of him, but he didn't argue either and it faded into a purr of his own as Dan rubbed his lower back. As much as he hated waiting, Dan was probably right about being healed and better prepared. He remembered Dan's hopeful horror that the monsters that had come out of Hollis and the dog had known each other. If the creatures got them both, would the ones they birthed still hunt together? 

Ridiculous, he told himself. They would be mindless drones to whatever queen hatched in the area, unless it was one of them. He shuddered and Dan held him. The hunters had the right idea there. Better to destroy everything than to let themselves be taken or the menace to spread. Dan had to solve the riddle of the armpiece. Rorschach had to help him. They were partners again, and that soothed more of the worry than was logical. 

Working together, they could fight this. People had to be protected. It would be a grim, impossible task alone, but he had his partner back. They wouldn't be able to save everyone, but they could make the creatures pay for each life they took. He thought of Hollis again, how he would never be found and no one would know how strong and brave he had been right up to the end. Except for them. They would be the watchers, and protectors, and hunters. There might be others later, but for now it was just them. 

He leaned his head against Dan's chest, felt the throb of his heart (and nothing else) slow and steady behind his ribs. Slow and steady then. They would do it carefully and right, keep themselves safe first. Follow the creatures own example. Make the Nest safe, make their suits safe, and then spread out from there, securing more and more territory until the monsters were exterminated or humanity was. 

Soon enough, the hunt would be on again.


End file.
